As per usual, we had a lively and many faceted discussion today. We began with a discussion of the Elevation church (someone's daughter has taken a recent interest in it). This begat the reasoning that churches have evolved into a capitalist mindset - of course they want their preachers to be trendy and have outgoing personalities - how else will they save as many people as possible? (Lining their pockets, of course, in the meantime.)
Steve pointed out one of Marx's comments on religion - no, not that one: Religion is the cry of the oppressed.
It was then discovered that this was part of a chain of churches. Franchurches - to coin a portmanteau. Joe found their website (link above) and regaled us with some information about their various, *ahem* services. The idea that we are all inherently sinners is a pretty capitalistic thing from the get-go. After all, what is a sinner but someone needs something (absolution, for instance)? We talked briefly about how one might go about persuading a younger family member to understand that this whole thing might be a pretty terrible idea, which we circled back around to again later. At the time, we left it at the idea that people who have been raised without religion and come to it later have at least been given an alternative (Gina, I believe said that.) An intelligent person who has been shown an alternative will most likely not choose religion when all is said and done. The idea of choice segued our conversation around to a topic at which it often seems to arrive these days, good old 45. We also spoke of the Tree Effect (sorry, can't find a citation for that one) that confronts many people when they see just how vast and interrelated societal problems can be.
People began making comparisons between the current administration and other countries where leaders are allowed to push religious agendas. After
a few references to covfefe, we eventually landed on the idea that the religious (and other) conservatives may be taking advantage of something like dementia. Joe refuted this by pointing out that many of 45's gaffs may be more intentionally timed than not - look at the passage of certain bills and the timing of said gaffs. We talked briefly about which would be worse: if Trump was being led astray or if he was consciously making decisions that buoyed the Christian right, as it were. Joe, again, pointed out that the gestalt effect makes it inconsequential. We got back to our discussion of some weeks ago about evil, prompting a reference to Hitler and Charles mentioning that it is quite likely that Hitler believed in what he was doing. This brought up
Godwin's Law. Something that
should be more hyperbolic than it is these days: the more insane elements of the far right literally are Nazis - no Godwin involved. We hit upon the repetition of history, the idea that History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce (Marx), and the idea of history being a
Markovian process. (Not actually just a Bad Religion song - it's a mathematical idea where variables cancel out and cause cyclical repetition.)
We talked a bit about progress and pendulum swings to the left and to the right, that things have been worse in human history, just not recently. Bob at one point objected to the idea that "we" elected 45 because so many of us actively worked against that outcome. There was discussion of how we might have stopped it and how perhaps our own hubris, thinking "there's just no way that he'll ever be elected," and "I do not need to extend any kind of olive branches to people who might vote for him," and - let's not forget - the infighting and finger pointing that caused the anti-Fascists to lose the Spanish Civil War... And we've Godwinned ourselves, again.
A great many opinions were voiced about intellectual laziness, the lack of critical analysis, and how used people are to being lied to. We talked about the difference between being educated and intelligent. Cheryl brought up, I believe,
this article from the New York Times. There were parallels drawn between faith, dogma, and a lack of ability to think of things in a nuanced fashion. Part of what allows our brains to function as well as they do,
chunking, is one of the things that begets every avenue of racism, prejudice, and intellectual laziness. Throughout history, more intellectual groups of people, who do not agree on every single facet of every single point refuse to walk in lockstep with each other - I believe Lyn pointed this out - and are regularly defeated because they cannot do that to muster the numbers to achieve victories. Often, those that do will excuse their lack of citation as "common sense" and bury their fear of change in tradition and its ilk.
We talked about the New Economy and how easy it is to contribute money to something and not even know that you are doing it. James pointed out that clickbait ads, such as
weather.com's prognostications of doom, are often evidence of "if you are not paying for a product, you
are the product." Sensationalist news editorial will garner more attention than honest - and relatively boring but truthful - reporting every time. We got back into a few different points dealing with how different viewpoints - cue Obi Wan Kenobi - can color our truth of events. And how one political party might see a president's inaction as positive while the other side can see him as an empty suit - or perhaps, Sch
rödinger's President: someone who takes away your rights while not doing anything at all. We tried to orbit back to our original discussion topic and brought up that there are more intellectually dominating religions that one could be pulled into. A cursory, critical,
and objective look at a religious text generally comes to the conclusion that most of them are on the same page. After all, if one is going to be led skyward (and keep in mind what science tells us is actually up in the sky) by a musical group of winged people after their brain dies, it might not be prudent for someone who believes that to laugh at
the Mormon idea that Jesus is hanging out on another planet or something of that sort.
I apologize for missing any points that anyone brought up - there was at least one from Michael and one from Suzy that I cannot summon, and my notes are failing me. Sorry!
We closed up shortly after the conversation got onto G. Gordon Liddy, Human, Nietzsche's All Too Human, and Camus. Here's a picture associated with at least two of those. Love you all. Good night. See you next weekend or sooner!
