You appear to be defining religion as belief held without objective knowledge.

But if this is true, we could argue all knowledge is religion. Sense none of us understand how consciousness works; the idea that we are creatures capable of having knowledge or understanding becomes a faith-based claim.

Obama has launched more drone strikes than any other Peace-Prize winner in history.

He’s certainly not the most controversial Nobel winner, but his award was embarrassing in the sense that European intelligentsia was congratulating backward America for electing a black President.

You may not agree that this was condescending, but it’s hard to argue that Obama’s legacy is of the peacemaker domestically or internationally.

Why punish the fat when being stupid is still free everywhere?

What’s “g**r” ?

Internet prank… “never let you down”…hmmm, can’t think of anything.

Argument and debate don’t work because they’re a terrible way to spread, express, and defend ideals.

The ironic thing about “Enlightenment” philosophy is that people cling to it’s methods and orthodoxy despite all evidence of their own lived experience. The truth doesn’t care about your logic.

You’ve just found the giant gaping hole in Marxist theory. Capitalism is built on chauvinism, bigotry, and supremacy precisely because in-group solidarity is more powerful than anything built on artificial class economic interests.

Imagining that race/gender/sexuality difference will fade away once class solidarity is achieved is arguing that capitalism must be defeated before we can resist it.

Communism is old, and young. The principals of communal living are the oldest form of human organization. It’s also the most common form today if you count small groups like family.

But as an organizing principal for government, it’s a baby. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. The Bolshevik revolution was in 1917. So the whole idea of communism is < 150-200yo. Compare to capitalism at this age and it’s all slavery and settler colonialism; the most massive redistribution of wealth through theft in history.

The logic that communism is a bad system because the Soviet Union should also condemn capitalism because the Dutch East India Company.

Whenever anyone says Chamberlan “gave up” Czechoslovakia I ask one simple question: What was he supposed to do? He could have declared war, like the lion Churchill did for Poland. But I’ll remind you that the only thing England sent to Poland was thoughts and prayers. Followed by over a year of “phony” war.

Look at a map. You’ll notice that Czechoslovakia is quite far from England. With fucking Germany in between!

The whole Chamberlan meme is just right-wing propaganda to delegitimize diplomacy. It only makes sense if you don’t think about it.

So, if the AI bubble pops, it’ll be a great time to build a PC

It’s a myth that “anyone” can get wrapped up in a cult. Their are many “filters” to joining a cult. Such as unusual dress, complicated social hierarchies, and tons of jargon. And they hit you with this stuff right up front; it’s not gradual. People who are not looking for community and meaning will be repelled.

So they’re filtering people who are not in a particularly credulous mental state. People who are not in a “joining” mentality. I’m not saying that educated, sophisticated, and intelligent people are immune. This all has to do with adjustment, maturity, and emotional stability.

So anyway, to mitigate the reach of cults, society should be organized to minimize alienation and isolation, while a multitude of sources of community and meaning should be encouraged. Check on the people you care about and make sure they’re getting on. Crush capitalism.

Just want to add a couple of things

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There were no extra-Biblical references to Pontius Pilate until 1961. Now imagine how much documentation must have surrounded the Roman prefect of Judea. All of it gone, except for a bit of limestone.

Also an argument (I think I heard it from Hitchens, but not sure): We know that the Nativity story is bogus because the Census that was supposed to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem is anachronistic. And we know that it’s important that Jesus be from Bethlehem (City of David) because the Messiah was prophesized to be from there.

So the question is: if were making up Jesus from whole cloth, why not just make him Jesus of Bethlehem? Why go to the trouble unless Jesus of Nazareth was something people were already familiar with?

Any platform that’s advertising based is a propaganda outlet. Reddit’s function is to manipulate pubic opinion.

Why not both?

No different than Windows. Kids will use what you put in front of them.

When I was fist getting interested in computers I didn’t want to run DOS, I wanted to play Doom.

What you describe is individualism. And while I agree that individualism has poisoned the Western mind, it comes from enlightenment philosophy, industrial capitalism, and economics, not faith. Viewing the whole world as the sum of individual choices is way younger than any major religion.

I would argue that the atomization of Western society has harmed religion as much as anything since religion is a cultural relic that still relies on communal activities.

Is 2021 a good year to study? Not only is this during the pandemic, but it was early when people were still taking the pandemic seriously.

There is nothing more totalitarian in existence than government regulating people’s reproduction. It’s for people who see abortion bans and think: this is great, but how can we extend the same principals and logic to men?

Purdue pharma followed strict manufacturing and purity standards to produce a drug that killed more Americans than the Viet Cong and Al Qaeda combined.

Can we say that the American healthcare industry really protects it’s customers from harm any better than the cartels?