[rayiner]

> You can point to the decline of organized religion and with it traditional gender roles, but then what explains the relative stability in post-Christian Europe?

As far as I can tell, Europe isn’t all that post-Christian. Even countries that have low levels of people actively practicing religion still carry a strong cultural legacy from Christianity: https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-nes...

Counterintuitively, America’s lack of a generous welfare system tends to destabilize traditional gender roles. Among women with children under 18, 56% would prefer a “homemaker” role if they were “free” to do either: https://news.gallup.com/poll/186050/children-key-factor-wome.... Contrast with just 26% of men. 39% of women without kids would also prefer to stay home if they had the choice. Even out of women who are currently employed, but have children under 18, the majority would prefer not to work.

Contrast say the Netherlands. It is an egalitarian, post-Christian place, for example, but 60% of working Dutch women only work part time, versus 20% of working Dutch men.

[nautilius]

Note that 'cultural legacy' is completely different from 'organized religion'. Celebrating 'Christmas' as a family get-together is completely different from celebrating the arrival of the messiah and deriving your complete moral compass from that.

[rayiner]

I think cultural legacy is more deeply intertwined with morals than people appreciate. It’s just hard to see it because you’re surrounded by it.

It’s easier to notice when you compare between countries and across religious traditions. My dad was raised very religious (Muslim) in Bangladesh. His grandfather was an imam. He is non-religious and I grew up non-religious, but I joined a Christian church after I got married. From that vantage point I was able to see how much of what I thought was secular American culture could be traced back to Christianity.

Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality. They almost fall over themselves to welcome people from different ethnic backgrounds. I suspect this has something to do with Christianity’s origins as a Jewish religion adopted by the Gentiles. I mean, how many societies have a religion centered around some other ethnic group?

There’s so many aspects of society and culture that are the product of history, and of course history is deeply intertwined with religion. My atheist friend, who is white, was telling me how much she hated her uncle for being racist against Muslims. I pointed out to her that was an extremely Christian thing to say! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010&ve...

> Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

By contrast, Islam is a religion that arose in Arab society, where kinship ties mean everything. In my home country, putting people you don’t even know over kin, based on some abstract notion of justice, would be unthinkable. It actually made me a little uncomfortable to think that people like me had caused strife within her family.

[trees101]

Yours is a really valuable perspective on this issue, and probably gives you more clarity than those of us who have grown up immersed in the values of the West like fish in water. I had a Muslim friend who used to comment on how "Christian" my country was, whereas I'd always seen it as highly secular.

The British historian Tom Holland is very good on this topic. His recent book "Dominion" is basically an examination of how Christianity so pervasively shaped the West. He's got some good interviews on YouTube if anyone wants a shorter introduction to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIJ9gK47Ogw,https://www.yout....

[dekervin]

As some said, the greatest trick christianity ever pulled...

[rayiner]

Thanks for the book reference.

[ctrl_s]

> Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality. They almost fall over themselves to welcome people from different ethnic backgrounds. I suspect this has something to do with Christianity’s origins as a Jewish religion adopted by the Gentiles

My experiences are almost the complete opposite to yours, I suspect there are major differences between congregations that can't be applied to the nation at large. Churches in the US are weirdly segregated by ethnicity, at least in the south[0] where you find black churches,white churches, Korean churches, etc.

I am African, and had the misfortune of attending a church that's part of the Southern Baptist Convention. I got the distinct sense that they are warm and welcoming to people requiring charity or to rake on as a "project"; not equals. Almost everyone who saw me volunteer assumed I was a poor student at the affiliated Theological college, and would be very warm, but when I'd let them know I was a software engineer and much closer to them socio-economically than they had assumed, they didn't know quite how to act, it was weird,and it happened multiple times.

Trump's presidency was a bad time to be black in an SBC church. I never felt quite comfortable, and my faith intensely tested. It came to a head when I encountered incidents of passive and active racism[1],and I came to the conclusion that we could not possibly be worshipping the same God. Then again, the southern churches could reconcile Christianity and slavery, so perhaps all ethnicities are welcome, with the long-lived exception of blacks. YMMV

0. As a point of comparison: South Africa has more integrated churches, just 1 generation since the end of apartheid.

1. Why aren't you going to a black church? Oh, the other black member, he's intelligent and articulate, he's practically white!

[x86_64Ubuntu]

Keep in mind, that the Southern Baptist church literally exists because the Baptist convention started asking thorny questions concerning slavery and Christianity. In light of that discussion, the southern congregations broke off to form a convention that would welcome African slavery[1] and have white supremacy as a bedrock principle. Sure, there are plenty of blacks in the Southern Baptist denomination, but they attend black churches for the reasons you've noted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention#Di...

[rayiner]

Without trying to detract from your experience, I would suggest that your experience as a Black person in Bangladesh, India, or China would have been a whole lot worse. Heck, even though most Muslims aren’t Arab, it’s pretty darn clear that the Arabs think that is south Asians are second class citizens in the Muslim world. And unlike white southerners they’re not passive aggressive about it.

[random314]

Without trying to distract from your suggestions, I would like to state that I have never seen race segregated mosques anywhere in India, while these seem to be widespread in the United states.

[random314]

while these seem to be widespread in the churches in United states.

[MockObject]

Seems like a strange post to receive these silent downvotes.

[btilly]

Question. How would you suggest I square your claims about Arab society with the observed fact that every year thousands of girls die in Arab countries from honor killings. And the fact that, as https://www.statista.com/statistics/1019538/mena-arab-respon... shows, in many of these countries, significant minorities think that such killings are justified.

Killing your own child suggests to me that kinship means rather less than it does in Western cultures.

[rayiner]

Honor killings happen because kinship ties are so strong. The individual becomes completely subsumed within the family. Anything that brings shame to the individual is imputed to the whole family. Moreover, controlling reproduction becomes extremely important because that is how kinship links between families are created.

[btilly]

I know that I am showing my cultural biases. But the entire way of thinking that you are describing strikes me as fundamentally evil. Subsuming the individual to the social unit is at the heart of the worst excesses of racism, nationalism, etc. If you look for the worst mass crimes in history, you will find this idea at the core.

Conversely, liberty starts with valuing humans for the individuals that they are. And not as mere appendages which serve a larger whole.

[rayiner]

I would say it’s complicated. Religion reflects culture, and culture reflects technological and environmental realities (e.g. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-ate-pork-mi...).

Nomadic desert life is brutally hard—I suspect that if a tribe of Arab nomads had the individualism of people from San Francisco they’d all quickly die of starvation. Independence of the individual from the extended family unit isn’t all that viable absent market economies, social safety nets, etc. Independence of women from men isn’t all that viable in an environment where survival requires physically demanding and dangerous work (herding animals, fending off intruders, etc). Even in modern western society, the old depend on the young for survival; the physical safety of women is underwritten by armed men, etc. We just have layers of abstraction (Social Security, police departments, etc.) that allow those things to be done at arm’s length. In a pre-modern society those social dependencies all collapse into the family unit.

I tend to agree that, as all these economic and technological predicates for individualism arose, Christian societies were better positioned to take advantage. On the flip side, my personal belief is that modern western societies have taken that too far, to the point where they’re no long even viable as societies. The future of Europe, for example, looks to be Islam. Maybe a moderated, more secular version, but probably still quite different than the culture that prevails today.

[meheleventyone]

> Subsuming the individual to the social unit is at the heart of the worst excesses of racism, nationalism, etc.

Is it though? I don’t think I’ve found more individualistic societies to be less racist or nationalist.

[MaxfordAndSons]

You can find the idea of the individual being subsumed to the kin group to be disconcerting or strange (I do), without categorizing it as a "fundamentally evil" way of thinking. Honor killings are an extreme end of the spectrum of behaviors exhibited by people with this belief system; but there are equivalently extremes in the behaviors of people with Western, liberal-individualistic belief systems. Both belief systems are just survival strategies evolved by different groups of humans exposed to different historical and environmental contingencies. Both can be perverted to justify extreme evil acts, just as both can fairly point to the extremes, in themselves and the other, and declare them as evil. And note, this isn't cultural relativism: one can respect the sovereignty of the Islamic value system without excusing honor killings, just as one needn't cast Western liberal individualism as "fundamentally evil" because taken to it's extreme people have used it to justify mass shootings of strangers.

[remarkEon]

If you’ve spent some time outside of the west, and what the west conceives as “comparable with the west”, you’ll find that there are many cultures that are what you describe as “evil”.

[insanejudge]

> Subsuming the individual to the social unit is at the heart of the worst excesses of racism, nationalism, etc. If you look for the worst mass crimes in history, you will find this idea at the core.

Do you have anything other than the jordan peterson paraphrase to back this as a cause, as opposed to the actual dangerous ideologies? One could just as easily state as absolute fact that subsuming the individual to the societal unit is at the heart of the greatest accomplishments of humankind.

This idea is a straightforward false dichotomy presenting the only alternative to absolute individual liberty as complete subjugation of free will, and used to provide some truly absurd explanations for things, such as 'honor' being the actual problem in this case, not the 'killings'

[FooBarBizBazz]

This is sort of a tangential post starting from your phrases "Killing your own child" and "honor killings". I eventually try to link it back to themes of loyalty to "family" vs. "nation" vs. universality.

1.

> Killing your own child

I can't hear this phrase without thinking of Abraham and Isaac. It's the story that the whole of the Old Testament revolves around.

(And then the New Testament goes to heroic lengths of reinterpretation? Or have I just gotten too much Girard in my head? I'm never sure how much to celebrate it as reformist (moving past the animal sacrifice cult of the Levites), vs. to detest it (continuing to worship the obscene god of the burning bush. But then how do you carve out that the Commandments are actually decent?). I'm also not quite sure that I'm really all that big a fan of Jesus himself; I may actually prefer the religion of Paul. But it was Jesus who was responsible for the Beatitudes, and for his famous and beautiful "whole of the law" summary. So I'm not sure. His radical anti-family message, combined with his urgency (and his apparent contempt for his disciples?) have never sat right with me. But maybe the urgency at least is essential.)

And supposedly the version we get in the Torah is the "Hollywood ending", whereas in the original (late neolithic?) story Isaac is simply killed and Abraham is rewarded. So the original is even worse.

(Or perhaps the fact of the "Hollywood ending" to Abraham and Isaac is itself an innovation to be celebrated, and we can view the Old Testament itself as part of that same Girardian process of reform, of yet-worse human sacrifice religions. A good thing about this is that it creates less of an Old Testament vs. New Testament binary/dualism; it expands the field of view.)

(There may also be a Yahwist vs. Elohist conflict I have yet to understand, which may help me tease apart good from bad parts of the Old Testament.)

2.

> honor killings

Not long ago I quoted Genesis 34, which disturbs me for several reasons -- that it celebrates an honor killing being one of them.

(Actually, maybe I'm wrong? Because they do not kill Dinah? More on that in a second.)

That the enemy clan is treated as a unit to be destroyed rather than the individual man is another. How can that possibly be justice?

(Some people will claim that Shechem raped Dinah. NIV translates it that way, but KJV doesn't. I don't believe the NIV translation. First, because those societies still exist and "consent" isn't really something they think about in judging these cases. And I mean, it says right there at the end that the Israelites kill the men and take their wives captive, presumably to be raped. Second, because Shechem is said to speak kindly to her and request her hand in marriage. And third because Hamor et al act as though good relations should be possible with the Israelites. KJV doesn't say "raped", it says "defiled" (more than once), and, given the rest of the chapter's focus on circumcision, I honestly think that the fact that he had sex with her with his intact penis is the thing they found offensive. Symbolic of course of his being an Other. A belief that comports with the rest of the Old Testament's repeated admonishments not to marry outside the Tribe (e.g., Samson and Delilah). I think it's much closer to a Black man being lynched for having the temerity to sleep with a white woman.)

...which brings us to, of course, the central role of genital mutilation to the story, which is another reason to be disturbed by it.

The complete rejection of an apparently good-faith effort towards peace and mutual assimilation is a fourth reason to be disturbed, but consistent with the particularism/separatism of the rest of the Old Testament.

And a fifth is the trickery involved. "Yes, yes, we can all get along! Undergo our painful and irreversible initiatiation!" ...and then be slain without mercy while you're still recovering.

I had the TV on the other day and saw a Rick Steves visit to Auschwitz/Birkenau, in which I was similarly disturbed by the amount of trickery involved. The victims were told to bring their luggage, so they would believe that they were being resettled to live good lives in another place. The sign over the gate famously said "Arbeit macht frei", another lie. All to avoid panic while their killing was planned. All like the promise of the sons of Jacob in Genesis 34:15-16.

All the more tragic because so many of those Jewish victims had assimilated into German society (not necessarily abandoning Judaism, but just treating it as another religion in the Liberal style, instead of as an ethno-nationalist thing), and they and the German gentiles they lived more-or-less peacefully among (until the Nazis riled them up) were essentially living as Hamor had promised,

> 9 And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you.

> 10 And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein.

which would have been the desirable outcome.

If it isn't clear yet, while Shechem may be a little dumb here (sort of a Romeo character), I think Hamor's the good guy, consistently trying to steer the situation towards a peaceful and mutually beneficial outcome.

We could really use Dinah's point of view here. I choose to interpret her as a sort of Juliet, stuck between these Montagues (Israelites) and Capulets (Hivites).

...

Can we bring it back to the themes of "kinship" and "Arab culture" (or, culture in the Middle East) vs. "Western culture"? To the themes of grandparent post?

Well, my interpretation of Genesis 34 is that it is anti-"miscegenist". Which would be, if not about kinship, then at least about nationality. And certainly not universalist.

And Abraham/Isaac is about sacrificing blood kin for the demands of a god who is arguably the personification of a nation.

So perhaps this is about nation vs. family -- dishonor to the nation outranking loyalty to kin.

Of course, this is all a bit inbred, so "nation" largely is "kin". Maybe then this is a meme that wants to create loyalty among genes at, say, the cousin-level degree of relatedness, at expense both of loyalty to specific children, and also of sympathy to outsiders. I'm thinking about ant colonies and cancer cells now. It's a choice to privilege a certain scale of "incorporation" -- what is the "body" we care about?

[danans]

> I mean, how many societies have a religion centered around some other ethnic group?

Plenty. Southeast Asia has religions centered around Indian or Arab religions. Same for Iran and much of Central Asia with Islam.

All these places have adapted the other ethnicity's belief system to their own culture.

It's no different for Christianity. Bertrand Russell described it as the combination of Greek philosophy with Jewish mythology and Roman societal/power structures.

[bangkoksbest]

I want to add double emphasis on this. Christianity before and without the Greek philosophical influence is primarily a religion of itinerant ascetics and martyrs (without the abstract ideals added, almost all of the story in the Gospels boils down to an itinerant ascetic being martyred).

Some of the earliest extant texts in Christianity come from Justin Martyr, who, just a century after Jesus, was already workshopping the idea that Plato and Socrates were unknowing Christians that laid a philosophical ground for Christianity.

[bckr]

For an intriguing spin on this, look into Manichaeism, a 3rd-century religion from modern Iran which syncretizes Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Buddhism, and survived until the middle of the last millennium in China.

[bckr]

clarification: from what is now called Iran

[ClumsyPilot]

"think cultural legacy is more deeply intertwined with morals than people appreciate."

The cultural legacy of modern Europe is that of Renaissance, which is a partial rejection of many religious morals and practices we would find abhorrent today. Like burning heretics, astronomers and philosophers at the stake, witch hunts, etc.

People were put to death for translating the Bible into english from latin, mind you.

There was a re-discovery and embracement of great works antiquity, think ancient Greece.

[labster]

This reads like Renaissance era propaganda. It was mostly a reaction to existing social pressures which used the notion of the classics to promote change.

People did not go out and restart republics (for a couple centuries, which is a long time), nor bring back Aristotelian astronomy (rather the opposite), nor rituals of the old gods, nor rediscover ancient works that hadn’t been intentionally preserved by centuries of medieval scribes (papyrus lasts < 500 years in moist Europe). They reinterpreted the past. It was no longer “copy the procedures of the great doctor Galen”, it was “copy the curiosity”.

[ClumsyPilot]

> This reads like Renaissance era propaganda

The fact that we call the time when Church was at the peak of it's power 'Dark Ages' is a testament to success of Renaissance era propaganda

> People did not go out and restart republics

The french revolution?

[Godel_unicode]

Over 200 years after the end of the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, the French were too busy conducting the second deadliest religious war in European history after the 30 years war.

[hipparchus]

I can't help but feel like you've got a deep case of confirmation bias here.

> Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality. They almost fall over themselves to welcome people from different ethnic backgrounds. [...]

This is true in anglophone countries, sure, but it's less the case in europe and in particular, say, eastern europe or the balkans: ignoring albania/kosovo/bosnia, you've got plenty of heavily christian countries there who are not so open to people of different ethnic groups (well, which deviate from ethnic groups common to the region). You'll be treated more or less well but still fundamentally considered an outsider, and may not be welcome depending on where you go. Consider otherwise the armenians who, while I'm heavily leaning on stereotypes, are still quite well known for being both 1. pretty deeply culturally christians, and 2. a pretty closed-off community that often intermarry (although I do know there's often intermarriages with greeks and georgians)

I would agree with your point, but I would warn you not to assume that everything true of americans and/or anglophone countries often follows closely in other christian countries.

[dragonwriter]

> Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality.

I think you are confusing “Western liberal democratic societies” with “Christian countries”. The latter are a subset of historically Christian countries (many are more accurately post-Christian, now), but plenty of Christian countries are not Western liberal democracies and those do not fit the mold you are trying to fit “Christian countries” into.

[unmole]

> Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality.

Citation needed.

> They almost fall over themselves to welcome people from different ethnic backgrounds. I suspect this has something to do with Christianity’s origins as a Jewish religion adopted by the Gentiles.

Yet Christian kingdoms had zero qualms about persicuting Jews for centuries.

> I mean, how many societies have a religion centered around some other ethnic group?

You mean like Islam which has over 1.9 billion adherents and privileges a language spoken by 300 million Arabs?

[DyslexicAtheist]

>> Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality.

> Citation needed.

Jacques Ellul got you covered[1], if you dig through the footnotes and references in his books you'll be able to find hundreds more.

Jacques Ellul's La subversion du Christianisme (The Subversion of Christianity)

also "Trahison de l'Occident" (The Betrayal of the West)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul#Bibliography

[tsimionescu]

Christianity in Europe has been historically the biggest source of social hierarchy, supporting the divine right of Kings, the notion of deference to the priesthood, and the priesthood's subservience to the Pope (or, in Eastern Europe, the Patriarch).

Even after the Reform, Christianity encouraged tight family groups, the wife's subservience to her husband, and similarly children's subservience to their father.

Equality only exists in Christian texts, it is not part of any common practice.

If you want to look for a historical source about modern ideas of equality between people that inspired the Enlightenment movement, then that source are the Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee), whose society didn't have the same type of rigid hierarchies that all European societies at the time had.

[nautilius]

Obsession about equality as a central tenet in Christianity? You may want to read up on the crusades, slavery, the 30 year war, how even other Christian immigrants (Irish, Italian, etc) were welcomed into the US etc.

Also, just because some Christians share some of the morals of your humanist friend does not imply any relation whatsoever. There appears to be that desire from religious groups to often exaggerate and emphasize any such correlation as something more. When your friend meets with his family at the end of December and again at the equinox in spring - do you point out how Paganist he is? And, when you as a Christian presumably celebrate Christmas and Easter with your family - do you tell them they are just like Pagans as well? If not - why not?

[rayiner]

> Obsession about equality as a central tenet in Christianity? You may want to read up on the crusades, slavery, the 30 year war, how even other Christian immigrants (Irish, Italian, etc) were welcomed into the US etc.

You may want to read up on slavery. Abolition in Christian societies was mainly a religious movement. Arab societies practiced it extensively as well, but kept going until the 20th century, and only really stopped because of international pressure from Christian countries.

The crusades? Both Muslims and Christians engaged in offensive military campaigns during the crusades. Only in Christian countries do any appreciable number of people feel bad about it.

Likewise, the speed at which Irish and Italians were integrated into American society is pretty much unparalleled by anything in any non-Christian society. I’m Bangladeshi on both sides back into the the dim reaches of history. But if I went back I would be “bideshi” (foreigner) because I was raised in American. My white wife and mixed kids would never be considered Bangladeshi, no matter how long they lived there. (It’s an ethnostate: a country for people of ancertsin

[nautilius]

> You may want to read up on slavery. Abolition in Christian societies was mainly a religious movement.

Ah, so there were Christians who opposed it, which makes that the central tenet in Christianity. But there were also those Christians who practiced it - does that now make slavery a central tenet in Christianity instead?

You can't just cherrypick what you find most flattering for your group and then round it off with 'but the Arabs'.

Italians are still a protected minority in New Jersey, and Hispanics are still a protected minority throughout the US. Natives were forcibly Christianized and then killed or deported to barren lands no one wanted.

[jezclaremurugan]

I think we need to factor in "Correlation is not causality" and the presence of confounding variables.

Slave abolitionists explicitly mentioned where they derived their morals from - clearly establishing causality.

Could there be something else common among slave practitioners apart from religion - like common materialistic greed and superior firepower to overpower and dominate others?

[rayiner]

Abolition among white Americans arose expressly as a religious movement. They weren’t just Christians who happened to oppose it, but an opposition expressly rooted in Christian theology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers_in_the_abolition_movem...

Supporters of slavery, by contrast, often invoked the language of science and progress and condemned abolitionists as religious zealots. The famous Cornerstone Speech, for example, given by the VP of the Confederacy:

> This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics.

Think about this logically. Imagine you’re a white European looking around at the world in 1776. There is no systematic archeology, there is no science of genetics. What would cause you to look around at the civilization and technology Europeans had developed, compared to what Africans or Asians has developed, and conclude that all people were equal? Back then it was a moral premise you had to accept on faith without the support of science.

Consider Thomas Jefferson, who wrote about the Creator endowing all men with alienable rights. Even though he was probably a deist, he expressly incorporated Christian morality into his worldview (e.g. the Jefferson Bible).

Or consider German Americans, one of Lincoln’s core constituencies that pushed him toward emancipation. These were recent immigrants to the Midwest who had no historical beef with the south. Yet, per capita, states like Iowa contributed the most soldiers to fight and die for the union. Do you think they were driven by abstract enlightenment principles of equality and justice?

It’s widely accepted today that the Civil War was about slavery. That has a remarkable implication. 360,000 union soldiers died to end slavery in the south. Can you name another example of one ethnic group incurring that kind of casualties to fight for the freedom of a different ethnic group? Maybe there are other examples but I’m unaware of any.

[bangkoksbest]

Liberalism is marked by comparison to abstract ideals. Whether and to what degree other areas of the world do worse in comparison to those ideals is not usually going to be something of paramount concern.

This idealisation and universalisation is not only Western of course. I'm a mixed kid like your kids, but South India rather than Bangladesh, and I would be and am rather unquestionably accepted as Indian when I am there. But a major driver in the split between India and (then-)Pakistan comes down to the (novel & idiosyncratic) liberal ideals we compare to.

As a final note re: the Crusades. I was not under the impression the Crusades were looked down upon because of war, but because they too often were incoherent raiding expéditions that sacked and subdued parts of Christendom even more than they won control of the Jerusalem.

[rayiner]

> This idealisation and universalisation is not only Western of course. I'm a mixed kid like your kids, but South India rather than Bangladesh, and I would be and am rather unquestionably accepted as Indian when I am there. But a major driver in the split between India and (then-)Pakistan comes down to the (novel & idiosyncratic) liberal ideals we compare to.

"Liberal India" is a narrow slice of the country--more representative of the British culture that heavily influenced the Indian elite than ordinary Indians: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial...

Heck, my mom went to college and graduate school and had a white collar career in Bangladesh in the 1960s and 1970s. But she came from a wealthy, socially prominent family, and had British tutors growing up. It would be tremendously misleading to use her experience to talk about how "liberal" Bangladeshis are.

[mangodrunk]

Equality isn't a central tenet of Christianity (for some sects, probably it is), and even if it were, many Christian socities have certainly not practiced that. Christian societies have tendencies to be militaristic and exploitative. I do think that is in part driven by their religion, to convert others.

You are are oversimplifying, cherrypicking, or getting the facts wrong.

Isn't equality a tenet of Islam?

[trees101]

Christianity subsumed some pagan traditions. It's hardly a secret "gotcha", it's open for all to see. In the same way that when I eat an apple, the apple becomes part of me, I don't become an apple.

There are critical differences between Paganism and Christianity. For example, the philosopher Rene Girard showed that many traditions had stories of mimetic desire and scapegoating, but Christianity showed the crucial end of that story, the fact that the killing of the scapegoat to save the community is a lie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSzF2OG2ejI.

GK Chesterton has a lot of interesting things to say about Pagans also http://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/heretics/12/, and his book The Everlasting Man is worth reading for the way that it uses pagan tropes to point towards Christianity.

[nautilius]

Sure. But do you go around claiming that the apple just sprang into your hand without a tree to grow from? That's the argument the post I replied to made.

And the common cherrypicking strawman again in this thread. No one claimed that Christianity is indistinguishable from Paganism, much like no one claims that the apple is indistinguishable from the apple tree.

[trees101]

I'm not sure I follow your apple/tree analogy. But I would say that Christianity is true, and that therefore other truths, no matter what their source, would point in the same direction. So ideas (such as dying/rising gods) could potentially arise in paganism, yet still have some truth, and then be subsumed by Christianity.

I highly recommend GK Chesterton's book "The Everlasting Man", its a short read and still worthwhile even for atheists or those of other faiths as the author is brilliant.

[hypertele-Xii]

Not completely different, the messianic morals are embedded in the ceremony by design: Sharing, caring, family, food, etc. These aren't incidental, they're the whole point. Sure the specific historical person, i.e. the messiah, blurs over time, as probably do the ceremonial activities, but surely they retain some of the original moral ideals.

[nautilius]

You prove my point. You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person. These are two different worlds.

Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference. That there is some superficial overlap (a tree? presents?) doesn't allow you to claim the morality of atheists as religion-derived. That's ludicrous. It's like saying the local butcher taking apart a pig is adhering to Aztec rituals and their morals because at some point in both 'ceremonies' someone holds a heart in their hands.

In fact, the source of morals among atheists seems to be a permanent puzzle for many people with religious background, simply claiming them as religion-based misses the point completely.

[atq2119]

> You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person.

Raises hand: Atheist here who thinks that a historical Jesus is at least plausible. Obviously not a son of god, though, that would have been embellishment by later generations.

[jmopp]

This. The existence of Jesus says nothing about his divinity or the validity of Christianity. We have more evidence for the existence of Muhammad. Does that make Islam the 'correct' religion? We have even more evidence for the existence of Joseph Smith. Does that make Mormonism the 'correct' religion? We have video recordings of L. Ron Hubbard, along with many people still alive who have met him. Does that make Scientology the 'correct' religion?

[nautilius]

Exactly. The possible existence of someone names Jesus ~2000 years ago gives zero validity to anything. But we don't even know that. It takes faith to believe in Jesus as a historical figure. There is as much evidence as for the existence of Harry Potter.

[tsol]

Jesus definitely existed as a person, we have records from the time mentioning him

[thecage411]

That is overstating it a bit; there are mentions decades (but not centuries) after his reported death.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus has a good overview of the non biblical sources.

[lovecg]

> In fact, the source of morals among atheists seems to be a permanent puzzle for many people with religious background, simply claiming them as religion-based misses the point completely.

I don’t have a religious background and it’s still a puzzle for me. Best I can manage to explain it is through a combination of tradition and genes (“human nature”), and tradition is often indeed derived from historical religious environment. Moral is mostly universal but not completely - for one example the attitudes towards hard work at the expense of everything else vary greatly across different cultures and religious traditions.

[atq2119]

Amusingly, there's the same trap here as with the "who created the world" problem.

Sure, religious people get their morals largely from their religion. But where do the morals of the religion come from?

[lovecg]

You’re right of course - religion and tradition feed on each other. I’m imagining it as a dynamic system with feedback loops, etc. where organized religion plays the role of the mechanism that slows down change and provides stasis. We’re only a couple generations into our “post-religious” society so the jury is still out on how this great decoupling will play out exactly.

[nautilius]

I don't think moral is universal at all - 'You shall not kill' vs cannibal societies and honor killings, monogamy vs polygamy, eating animals vs vegetarianism, slavery vs abolitionism, democracy vs. tribalism, patriarchy vs. equality, mothers' rights vs unborn rights, etc.

It's not only not universal, but it's highly fluid (which it couldn't be if it was universal).

[v-erne]

I always preferred to look at morals as survival strategies for societies. From this point of view they do not have to be universal to work - its enough that they skew the probablity a bit towards survival of given group and the rest is just some version of Darwins Game of Life.

[galangalalgol]

I'd still suggest the overlap isn't incidental. Religions need stable or expanding societies to procreate. So ideology that leads to stable or expanding societies is strongly selected for. Religions with written texts have surprisingly low mutation rates in their ideology, but when conditions begin to favor different behaviors to promote stability, polygamy for instance, the ideology changes quickly.

As a reference to my biases, I'm a theistic agnost, I don't know, but I believe. The life of pie or secondhand lions explain the why pretty well.

[nautilius]

But you're only arguing about proliferation of religion, you're not saying anything about the overlap?

[xhevahir]

>Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference.

The notion that atheists--or Christians, for that matter--ground their moral reasoning in first principles, completely free of unexamined assumptions and social convention, is so laughable that I'm amazed anyone here is seriously suggesting it.

[nautilius]

Wow, you destroyed that strawman!

[xhevahir]

If that's a straw man, then what would a more charitable interpretation of your comment look like?

[robotresearcher]

The mid winter family-oriented festival predates Christianity. The party at the darkest part of the year is indeed the original point.

[nautilius]

Indeed. I'd be surprised to find a single culture on this planet that did/does not celebrate that days are finally getting longer.

[Enginerrrd]

Even among equatorial people's?

[nautilius]

You got me. I should have specified that a certain threshold of day-night length difference would have to be exceeded to be subject to celebration.

I'm glad I specified the planet, or else someone would have pointed out planets without a tilted axis.

[Edit] Fair point, though. I asked for a single counterexample and you delivered.

[ClumsyPilot]

> Sharing, caring, family, food, etc

I really dislike religion claiming monopoly on morals.

Even tribes of cavemen cared for each-other. We have evidence of people being cared for and living for years with crippling iniiries. They could not care for themselves let alone help the tribe.

Even animals care for each-other and protect each-other, can't claim culture or religion there - its a basic feature of evolution.

If there was actually a correlation between religion and morality, then we would see less crimes like murder/ robbery /rape in religious societies. If anything, the opposite is true.

[hypertele-Xii]

> I really dislike religion claiming monopoly on morals.

Where's the monopoly? A discussion on the moral values of religious rituals doesn't preclude anything. I don't even belong to a church.

It seems you think (perhaps subconsciously) that religion has a monopoly on morals. Why else are you bringing that into the discussion and arguing against it?

> Even animals care for each-other and protect each-other, can't claim culture or religion there - its a basic feature of evolution.

Religious morals are an instance of mutual care emerging through social evolution in an animal - the human, specifically. And humans call it "culture", because humans like to invent words to describe specific instances of phenomena.

[throwaway894345]

To be fair, you can interpret “cultural legacy” as “celebrating the same holidays” or as “having similar morals even if they are divorced from religious faith”.

[nautilius]

Yes, but a superficial and accidental partial overlap between atheist and religious morals is meaningless.

[throwaway894345]

I disagree that it’s superficial or accidental.

[nautilius]

You’re not alone. Many religious people cannot fathom that something outside of and independent of their moral system exists. Take the old discussion of atheists as satanists. What is that joke again? “No, we don’t believe in any of your imaginary friends.“

[throwaway894345]

I don’t see how that fits into the context of this conversation. Are you sure you responded to the right person?

[leto_ii]

> 60% of working Dutch women only work part time, versus 20% of working Dutch men

I would attribute this more to cultural aspects (there's something of a ravenmuter [1] issue in the Netherlands as well), but even more importantly, to basic economics. Kindergarden is very expensive, women get some maternal leave while men basically get none, so there's significant pressure on the mother to stay at home with the kids for longer.

When they return to the workforce after some years of childcare, they do so to lower salaries than they would have had otherwise, hence part time work becomes more attractive.

I don't deny that there's a natural tendency for women to be more nurturing, but I don't think that's the main force driving this disparity.

[1] https://m.dw.com/en/rabenmutter/a-6616009

[dan-robertson]

To what extent is this just people not liking their current job? That is, what percentage of homemakers would rather be employed, and how would the opinions of employed women change if their choices in the poll were current job/appealing alternative job/homemaker?

[scarmig]

Women generally report more job satisfaction than men do; you'd expect a higher proportion of men preferring homemaking to their jobs if that was the dominant factor.

[rayiner]

I suspect it’s a sliding scale—working is probably relatively more compelling if you’re a cancer researcher than if you’re writing up the paperwork for home mortgages. But way more people do the latter than the former, right? And most people doing the latter aren’t qualified to do the former (and that’s okay).

I think that often people with remunerative, intellectually stimulating jobs overlook the perspective of women who have (and are realistically only qualified to have) jobs we would probably regard as more mundane.

[jolux]

Polling is one thing but the economics on this are extensive and they mostly reject your suggestions here. Female labor force participation is U-shaped with regards to GDP (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w4707/w4707...), once you reach the middle part of the curve it starts to increase again as GDP increases, probably because employment becomes more lucrative to women than raising children or staying at home.

If there is an effect here it can't be all that significant, if you look at wealthy countries with larger welfare states than the US most have a female labor force participation rate at least as high.

[danans]

> Counterintuitively, America’s lack of a generous welfare system tends to destabilize traditional gender roles.

I don't think that's so counterintuitive. Generous welfare systems give more people the opportunity to pursue the work lifestyle they would like to rather than the one they would have to to make ends meet if the generous welfare system didn't exist.

That's a totally different scenario than gender roles being enforced by religious or cultural restrictions. That also promotes traditional gender roles but doesn't give individuals a choice in the matter.

[jjav]

> 56% would prefer a “homemaker” role if they were “free” to do either

I would imagine approximately everyone would prefer a homemaker role if it was possible.

I had the fortune of taking multiple years off to spend with my child at home, it was the best time ever. Unfortunately savings don't last forever so eventually had to go back to the soulless grind of daily status report standups and endless useless meetings.

[sstoks]

What's is the desired conclusion of your comment? That women prefer to be homemakers more than men do so we should go ahead and do that and leave men to work? Please explain because I have no idea where you're going with this.

[industriousthou]

I think he’s pointing out the irony in conservative views. They bemoan the erosion of traditional gender roles, but undermine those roles by opposing a generous welfare state.

But, I mean, obviously it would be good if most workers made enough to support a family with a single income.

[itronitron]

You mention a lot of statistics. If there is a point you wanted to make could you clarify it?

[rayiner]

I stated the point in the beginning of the paragraph in which I cited the statistics:

> Counterintuitively, America’s lack of a generous welfare system tends to destabilize traditional gender roles.

[symlinkk]

That traditional gender roles are good for society

[irrational]

Who wouldn’t prefer to stay home if they had the choice? I could spend my days traveling, hiking, going to the beach, reading, working on hobbies, learning new skills, cooking, etc.

[thematrixturtle]

I think you misspelled changing diapers, doing laundry three times a day, spoon-feeding broccoli puree, scraping dried broccoli off the floor, shopping while trying to contain a squealing octopus, etc.

[coryrc]

Or watching and helping form your own child into him/herself, meeting your friends for casual lunches in the park while your kids play, playing goofy games, having time to make nutritious meals instead of heating frozen foods, etc.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

Interestingly, you're both right. Turns out you have to take the bad with the good, or more accurately TANSTAAFL

[cgriswald]

Grandparent was responding to the ridiculous notion that being a homemaker is like being on vacation with kids. No one is disputing there can be benefits to being a homemaker or having one in the family.

[coryrc]

Being on vacation with kids is far harder than being at home with kids!

[stickfigure]

It's... really not that bad? Actually, it's pretty fun.

I work from home, wife doesn't, that makes me the defacto stay-at-home dad. It's definitely playing the startup game in "hard mode" but I love not missing a thing.

[zdbrandon]

Also work from home and 100% disagree. Can hardly get anything done with a 4 month old.

[stickfigure]

Oh no! Well, it gets easier as the kid gets older. But they say every kid is different so YMMV. I only have the one, he's 4, and he's pretty easy.

Suerte.

[jjav]

All of these are orders of magnitude more pleasant than daily standups etc.

As a man, I had the fortune to stay at home for several years with my child and it was the most wonderful time ever. Sure it's a lot of work, but also a lot of joy.

[d0mine]

The statistics for what it is worth is 56% (kids) vs. 39% (no kids) women chosen "homemaker" option i.e., perhaps diapers are not as important.

[tablespoon]

>> Among women with children under 18, 56% would prefer a “homemaker” role if they were “free” to do either: https://news.gallup.com/poll/186050/children-key-factor-wome.... Contrast with just 26% of men. 39% of women without kids would also prefer to stay home if they had the choice.

> Who wouldn’t prefer to stay home if they had the choice? I could spend my days traveling, hiking, going to the beach, reading, working on hobbies, learning new skills, cooking, etc.

"Homemaker" does not mean "staying at home, doing whatever you want."

[bluecalm]

Homemaker role doesn't mean spending your days travelling, hiking or going to the beach.

[rdtwo]

Can confirm had to do homemaker job on top of paid job I’d prefer to be at my normal job

[nanomonkey]

Metaverse Homemaker Addition allows you to do what every you want between wash cycles.

[TedDoesntTalk]

Depends on how many children you have.

[corpMaverick]

Yes, me too.

But, would you still feel the same if you had to stay home to take care of kids and a working spouse ?

[wolverine876]

And having very few adults to talk to, no status, no career advancement (in fact, the opposite), and little recognition.

[barry-cotter]

Most people do not care about their jobs. And they have jobs, not careers. They work because they get paid. Occasionally they get a brief flicker of satisfaction. More often they enjoy the company of their co-workers. Occasionally they hate their jobs so much that they engage in unhealthy behaviors s as a coping mechanism, like alcoholism, or they quit.

Basically everyone who doesn’t stay heavily involved in their professional field after retirement was doing it almost solely for money. There are better and worse jobs, more and less enjoyable ones. But a huge majority of people have jobs, not careers.

[cgriswald]

Well, sure, but take a few years off of your "job" and you'll find that your prospects for another job are far fewer and for less pay. I think that's generally what people mean by a career even if they aren't particularly chasing advancement.

[wolverine876]

I'm sorry to hear you feel that way, but those are pretty extreme and sweeping claims. Where do they come from? Here's some data from Gallup, which seems to strongly disagree with at least some aspects of the parent. It shows that every year, going back to 1993, over 80% report being completely or somewhat satisfied with their jobs.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1720/Work-Work-Place.aspx

On the Internet these days I often see contructed claims of extreme despair - about finding a partner, jobs, war, democracy, crime, etc. etc. In a way it matches an older rhetoric of making brazen, extreme, baseless statements that frame the conversation (around the baseless claims rather than the issue at hand), inflame it, and disrupt people who disagree. It's time to think about whose interests the despair serves.

[barry-cotter]

If you have low standards for what you want out of your job being completely or somewhat satisfied with your job is easy. I enjoy the company of my colleagues, have long holidays that allow me to spend a lot of time with my family and occasionally have engaged and diligent students. I’m somewhat satisfied. Would I do this for free? No. But most people have much worse jobs than I do. They get less respect, have less autonomy, less money and work longer hours than I do. They have less intellectual stimulation. Jobs that lots of people find very satisfying are badly paid, incredibly competitive or both. Actors, artists, professors, many people spend a decade or more of their life chasing that dream and never get it.

If you think this is despair I suggest talking to some depressed people. Most people work for money.

[ericd]

Eh? There are plenty of other parents and nannies at the park taking their kids out, if you want to talk to someone.

[cgriswald]

As a former homemaker this comes across as tone deaf. From my experience, you might as well have just said, "You can always hang out at a PTA meeting."

Being a homemaker can be incredibly isolating. Homemakers need meaningful adult interaction and relationships that are not centered around their children or exclusive to their spouses.

[ericd]

I’m not talking out of my ass here, it’s based on my experience being a stay at home dad for the past few years, we started seeing the same people over and over as we kept to a routine. I guess your mileage has varied from mine, though.

And yeah, it’s not supposed to be your only social outlet. Catch up with people who you’ve known from other parts of your life.

[notch656a]

> Homemakers need meaningful adult interaction and relationships

So go out and make them? My 2 year old goes where we are, if that activity isn't kid centered that's too fucking bad and kid is gonna have to deal; I have a life too. It's not like having all conversations centered around work at the office is especially meaningful either.

[Sharlin]

This effect is definitely amplified by suburban lifestyle. Suburbia is not a very good place to be a homemaker.

[barry-cotter]

Nannies are of a different social class. Most middle class people are much less likely to have real relationships with people who can’t relate to their problems. Same as rich people tend to have rich friends.

“Talking to someone” isn’t community. Colleagues provide an ersatz community for people who don’t have a real one in their life. You need a steady cast of characters and ideally repeated, purposeful interaction.

[rjsw]

> Nannies are of a different social class.

I don't think that is true in Europe. They are probably a fair bit younger than middle class mothers which could be a barrier to being friends.

[ericd]

If you keep to a routine of going to the park daily and spending a couple hours there playing, you’ll almost certainly start seeing the same people over and over.

[AdrianB1]

Having no career advancement is sometimes like not having cancer: a net positive. Most people have no career at all, they retire on the same job (just more "senior") they started with. For them, there is no loss.

Also a stay at home wife was traditionally not isolated from society; in my family one generation ago almost everyone was in that situation and I can tell that social interactions were much stronger and more frequent than my generation.

Recognition? That stuff people look for in Facebook likes, Twitter shares and LinkedIn "achievements"? That is attention seeking, not recognition.

[wolverine876]

Again, broad claims, but based on what?

> Having no career advancement is sometimes like not having cancer: a net positive.

I have never heard anyone express or imply that. I don't doubt you feel that way, but is there any evidence that it's widespread?

> Most people have no career at all, they retire on the same job (just more "senior") they started with.

That is almost certainly not true. I believe the evidence says that the great majority switch jobs many times and switch careers several times.

> a stay at home wife was traditionally not isolated from society

I've heard otherwise from homemakers of prior generations - the isolation was one of their primary complaints. And I'm pretty sure I've read about research showing the same. What makes your narrative true?

[npip99]

"Who wouldn’t prefer to stay home if they had the choice? I could spend my days traveling"

It's not travelling... If you're staying at home...