What Role Should Spiritualism Have In Leftism? | DEBATE

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[@MilesRoseProductions]

Does anyone else hate it when spiritualists misappropriate scientific terminology like "quantum", "fractals", "energy" etc, as a vague way of dressing up their woo-woo to look more credible?

[@kstar1489]

It’s incredibly annoying, yes. And anti-science

[@nickelbutt]

So much so. Especially when things like the quantum, fractals, and energy, are some of the most broad and complicated subjects in science.

[@xaviervasco]

No. Most continental philosophy did the exact same thing. It’s less about the specific usage and more about approaching the essence of how a word is conceptualised. That to me is more interesting and valuable then gatekeeping language.

[@MaxTheLazyCat]

It annoys me a lot because so many people have dedicated their loves to researching those extremely difficult fields of science and maths and then you have these fucking idiots who use these theories for there fictional gods.🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

[@DriscolDevil]

​@@xaviervascoshhh, you don't want to get into a debate with the fedora people. Science good, spirituality bad. Trust me, it's easier to just ignore them and discuss spiritual things with a group that speaks that same language. It will always just be nitpicking and semantics with these people.

[@goodpol5022]

6:00 Vaush absolutely hit the nail here. This happens all the time with Hinduism. My mom is Hindu and she legitimately told me word for word that “the flying chariots in the Mahabharata proved Indians invented planes thousands of years in advance” and my grandfather told me “Brahman is just what you call the element carbon”. That last one somehow makes less sense then the first one.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

Brahman is how I refer to my male buddies. Sup brahman!

[@zkapsh]

I feel like we don't see it none western countries because we are in western cultures your more likely to experience the excuses by western people if you live in western countries. If you live in a eastern countriesyour more likely to experience excuses by eastern religious people. In certain parts of Africa albinos are kidnapped and killed for medicine people to make stuff out of, you don't hear about it because its not a big religious view in the west. I think leftist theist/spiritualist take the anti-christan narrative but then play but my religion good it could never be used for bad.

[@infinitivez]

and thing is, even if Brahman is some personification of carbon, people formed this. It's not some actual magickal deity existing in reality. The personification is something held within the mind. While it may help some imagine new things, it should never ultimately be mistaken for anything more than it is; a mental construct. It really bothers me that people get into theistic thinking without examining the foundations and history surrounding them all.

[@zkapsh]

@@infinitivez what in any way was I being theistic?

[@soulmechanics7946]

They both make perfect sense man. I am not sure they are correct, but close.

[@macbox472]

>Be me >Learns about Pegans >Learns that Pegans call themselves witches. >They don’t fly around town with brooms. >Mfw

[@ff-qf1th]

what is the fucking point in paganism if broom flight not real!

[@macbox472]

@@ff-qf1th true

[@veganvanguard8273]

They astral project on brooms around town.

[@macbox472]

@@veganvanguard8273 Many Pegans say this is true.

[@Kuhmuhnistische_Partei]

Interestingly, witch-hunting was really more a Pagan thing during most of the Medieval Age. The belief in witchcraft itself was viewed by the Church as heretical superstition and leftovers of the old religions and was probably most popular among the rural populations where Christianization went slowly and even those who became Christians still had a lot of their old beliefs. Pope Gregory VII for example wrote a letter to Harald III of Denmark and asked him to ban the killing of women who were accused of causing pestilance and crop failures and a lot of members of the clergy tried their best to prevent such things. Christian witch-hunting just became a thing during the Late Medieval Age - originally against the will of the Church as an institution - and then becomes really a problem during the transition phase of Medieval Age and Early Modern Period when printing becomes an actual thing and the reformations starts - and the protestants were usually more eager in witch-hunting. The Catholic Church had basically a monopoly on superstitious beliefs and tried to oppress all the others that weren't part of their teachings. But when the control of the Church faded and - ironically - through the appearence of universities and the studies of the ancient classics a lot of new - often very esoteric - ideas emerged. The Church was no longer the only authority and was challenged more and more and the development of better printing presses allowed their critics and other people with "unusual" ideas to be heard by a lot of people and to spread their ideas. I mean, we today have a lot more scientific knowledge and a very professional scientific community and we still have all the pseudoscience and esoteric crackheads who find people they can convince, just imagine what kind of stupid teachings were possible back then. And the Church itself had just another flavor of spiritual bullshit to counter it. Imagine the QAnon-movement, but the only authority against them are fundamentalist Christians.

[@pikemand1410]

The moment you introduce religious thinking into a movement or political ideology you have set a timebomb under it that is guaranteed to eventually derail the whole thing. Because, at the fundamental level, religious thinking allows you to justify basically anything and sooner or later people WILL take advantage of that possibility space to inject their own personal bugbears and obsessions into what used to be a sound foundation.

[@Spongebrain97]

Yeah like Vaush talking with TJ Kirk demonstrated this when they got to the topic of Evangelicals negatively including politics based around their religion which justifies an autocratic/theocratic way of governing

[@safoualo3555]

Ah yes, because no atheist has ever been talked out of doing or thinking something in the history of Mankind 😑😑

[@llamacopter677]

@@safoualo3555 What a dishonest reading of the original comment, of course atheists can have irrational beliefs or politics but it's a lot easier when your framework is built around magical thinking. This isn't just a religious thing, the same could be said of people who believe in conspiracy theories, it's just that religion is extremely common.

[@jordanmoore7340]

@@safoualo3555 literally whataboutism

[@safoualo3555]

@@llamacopter677 yes, "magical thinking", because no religious person ever questions their beliefs or researches abt them, that's something only atheists can do 😑

[@veryde_3356]

1:06:55 "You have predetermined what irrational ideas you take seriously. Seeing fairies is as irrational as the invisible gunman." "But maybe you can see the fairies but only in UV light!" Perfectly underscored Vaush's point there

[@kstar1489]

that was a doozy

[@gothboschincarnate3931]

Ive seen Fairies....no other earth spirits tho.

[@mitchhudson3972]

Weird how now that we have machines that can see all those forms of light, all the fairies have disappeared

[@Iwillreply]

​@@mitchhudson3972They've entered the hollow earth /jk

[@Yoshimitsu4prez]

This whole thing was painful, like they really thought they had something with this “my weird paganism improves empiricism” thing

[@Ghee_Buttersnaps]

You watching at 13x speed bro??

[@toga4900]

@@Ghee_Buttersnaps they probably watched it live

[@Infinite_voyager]

@@toga4900 weird you had to explain live-streaming on KZbin

[@Ghee_Buttersnaps]

@@Infinite_voyager chill, it was just a little joke. I know there isn't a 13x speed

[@toga4900]

@@Ghee_Buttersnaps I should've known that lol

[@xaviersandoval1765]

The problem with these conversations is that every time you bring up something bad that someone could justify with spiritualism, spiritual people come back with "Well I don't believe that thing." They don't realize that we're not criticizing their specific beliefs. The criticism is against the process by which people come to spiritualist beliefs. A better way to frame the argument would be to relate it directly to certain political structures. The same way an anarchist wants to abolish the state, an anti-theist wants to get rid of non-empirical beliefs. Even if you can convince an anarchist that joe biden is a better pick for president than donald trump, the anarchist would say that the best way to ensure we don't have someone like trump in power is to not have a president at all. In this same way, an anti-theist may believe leftist pagans are better than right wing christians, but the way to solve the problem of bad spiritual beliefs is to not have spiritual beliefs at all.

[@DnD_guydude]

YES!!! Thank you! I've been trying to put this exact thought into the right words for like 20 minutes now.

[@xaviersandoval1765]

@@DnD_guydude Haha yeah, I get it. It took me the first hour of this video to actually formulate what was so frustrating about it.

[@xaviersandoval1765]

@@CambrianAnomalocaris I think that may be more the fault of me not using more specific language. I would phrase it more as, "An anti-theist wants to minimize theistic beliefs to the maximum extent."

[@ATurnip]

@@CambrianAnomalocaris explain that conclusion, please?

[@calmkat9032]

Absolutely, you see that in his "conservative trans person" debates too. The whole "well I don't believe in those positions" whenever Vaush points out evil policies that Republicans vote for that get trans people killed. Its important to get above that interpersonal conversation and talk about how your ideologies differ.

[@jamesrandall9489]

Oh my god, I lost it when they started throwing around words like “biological cosmology” and “bioquantum effects” like they had any chance of backing their paganism up

[@spikem5950]

Yeah. As a pagan I couldn't help but shout "What are you doing?!" at the screen with those bits.

[@leftunity8627]

@@spikem5950 don't try to suck up, you're not a good one. You're just as cringe.

[@DevinMacGregor]

I first went online in 1995 and was right up into anti science discussions by theists. It was all bastardizing terms and completely mispresenting them. The so called spiritualist in that just cherry picked science to rationalize their beliefs.

[@smekdei]

Unironically I hope vaush goes on an atheist arc, I live in a very religious area and God it's nice to hear someone not hold their tongue around religious people

[@nightblade3709]

I've been trying to get him to be vitriolically anti-theist because it makes me sane, but optics kek

[@yashreza6643]

I'd love that. Leftists who say criticizing religion "is cringe" reek of privilege.

[@zkapsh]

@@yashreza6643 I was told when I was in high-school early college I was the annoying atheist but now I'm better. It's like bitch I just have better arguments. Religious people regardless of political standpoint will bitch If you give them any push back.

[@jeddgangman4502]

@@zkapsh but atheists do definitely have an optics problem they can come across as snobby

[@zkapsh]

@@jeddgangman4502 amd religious people come off annoying and woke scolding. If you go around making a spiritual belief or just make a claim you don't get to be mad just because someone disagrees. Sure can atheist can be annoying but it gets tiring listening to religious people. And most atheist don't care about people being religious we get Annoyed when people try to put it in empirical things like science, or try to push political views with their religion all while they might get mad at others for doing the same with their religion. Most conversations about religion always seem to be started by religious/spiritual people.

[@REVANSBACK]

I've been on a theramintrees binge fest recently, and everything this guy is saying is setting off my alarm bells. If any of you haven't watched theramintrees, his stuff is genuinely great. Lots of anti-theism stuff, but his main focus is on spotting patterns of abuse in all environments and how to combat or avoid them. His videos are almost like mini therapy sessions, and have really helped me get some perspective on my own experiences with abuse. I'd you're interested you should definitely check him out.

[@atticmuse3749]

Love Theramintrees! The animations kind of creep me out, but he's got a soothing voice and good content!

[@wogdoggedguh9339]

His channel has definitely helped me get the last little bits of magical thinking out of my skull. I am so grateful for that channel

[@josiahgill1176]

Dude for real, theramintrees helped me untangle a lot of stuff. Got so excited to see them mentioned

[@HippoEnjoyer]

The KZbinr Telltale does something quite similar, as he covers cults, and the abuses of cults. Y’all would like him too

[@josiahgill1176]

@@HippoEnjoyer haha! Found him through telltale! This is great!!

[@penterjames8091]

I really wanted vaush to point how religion is historically used by structures of power. God-kings, feudal catholicism, to the current neoliberal christian church. you cant look at religion without looking at how it has changed over time.

[@kx7500]

yeah and you'll find that the way to counter that isn't actually anti-religion, its promoting freedom of religion. similar to how organizing is actually good, but the state gate keeps organization under it's parasitic narrowly controlled avenue.

[@MrHat.]

And if anyone claims this isn't the same with polytheism, look at the roman republic/empire.

[@goodpol5022]

@@MrHat. Them Greeks really executed Socrates just for asking “have you ever seen Athena?”

[@JohnDoe-xv9du]

@@kx7500 nah not really, as it turns out with wiccans and the crystal moms, they all combined to form qanon and anti vax

[@Lambda_Ovine]

To be fair, this is a very western centered point of view and even then one very focused on Christianity under colonialism. The truth is that religion has been used all around the world in multiple occasions to defy those very same power structures. Religion is a form of communication, it has been a way to organize people under a cause, forget about a deity, most people I've met that take any religion seriously don't do it because they actually firmly believe on a deity without doubt (they mostly don't think about it at all), but they do it because of culture, community and because they try to live a just life with purpose (and what that means is what is up to be questioned). I'm anti certain interpretations of religion, but just being anti religion as a whole? Nah, I don't see the use of it. I'm an atheist, btw. I think there's genuine utility in promoting leftist values under certain interpretations of Christianity, for example, so why would I just give that up because evangelicals are bat-shit insane?

[@bladecial9394]

At this point, Vaush should just do an anti-theist arc from the two religion debates he had recently 😂

[@Sqwivig]

Yes! I agree! Theism and spiritualism is just cringe and leads people to come to wildly incoherent conclusions, even if they hold leftist values. It matters how you got to those conclusions about your moral framework, and I'm sorry but faith-based rationalization just doesn't cut it. People should care about empiricism and data first and foremost. I think that would lead to a better and more educated world. Anti-theist arc let's gooooooo!!!!

[@LiarofShinovar]

man you really sound like a twitch chatter

[@bladecial9394]

@@LiarofShinovar I AM A TWITCH CHATTER!! TWITCH STRONK!! RAAAAAAAA 💪

[@deangraves7462]

Except that being anti-theist is not an intelligent nor correct position. The only correct position is agnosticism. This is coming from a monotheist.

[@MsScarletwings]

@@deangraves7462 of course it’s coming from a monotheist. For one, agnosticism and anti theism aren’t necessarily exclusive. The majority of anti-theists I know, including myself, *are* agnostic atheists. Antithesism is ontologically based if you agree that people should not be accepting woo bs and making important decisions/significant claims about empirical reality on faith and unfalsifiable, intuitive speculation, which is the set of premises I subscribe to. Faith and dogma are net harms upon the world that I would never seek to oppress with like,, state policy or anything, but I will oppose them rhetorically when I see them doing harm or pushing for irrational thinking. Antheism is a necessary tagalong to the promotion of critical thinking and skeptic principles. To be a pure agnostic you at the very least *cannot* be a theist, because that is accepting a positive claim without material evidence to back it up. Granted, there is such a thing as agnostic theism but that’s more of a tepid “ehh maybe?” subscription you see more with deists, or someone who is a theist but “hasn’t worked out all the finer details like what my God’s exactly like”

[@TitanBait]

I know they are a good person but having watched the whole thing live it was one of the most painful conversations I've seen. At times they were absolutely incoherent. Justified their entire faith post hoc. They think their beliefs are sound, within reason, when they are anything but. I've heard Christians defend their faith better. Many progressive religious people just accept that their faith in some ways goes against their politics and they just decide to not care, this person tried insisting that their beliefs are consistent with science and leftism and that his belief structure could never lead to believing absolutely horrific things.

[@sataniccabal4276]

“Bio-quantum”.

[@MalachioftheForest]

I think it's because, as he implied himself, he's used to debating these in pagan circles where belief in mysticism is a given, so you can all agree on that point and then argue how it fits into empirical reality. He seemed to continually slip into this shared understanding and then Vaush would pull back and it tripped him up. Maybe he would have been more coherent if he were debating another pagan.

[@TitanBait]

@@MalachioftheForest It would probably more coherent because they would both already believe some of the nonsense he was saying. To an outside observer watching him and another pagan talk, it would just as incoherent if not more so because they would get way deeper into the weeds than with Vaush constantly kicking him back to reality. It would be like two Qanon people talking, everything makes sense to them but it is still silly nonsense. I don't mean to be dismissive of people who are spiritual, they just kind of have to understand that secularism is, at the end of the day, the way we must view and interpret the world if we want to be able to solve real problems.

[@MalachioftheForest]

@@TitanBait i agree, we should approach things from a evidence based position. And if there is evidence that will dispute my faith i will happily accept it and adapt my beliefs. Anti-theists always assume that people who hold spiritual beliefs are incapable of rationality. Very frustrating.

[@TitanBait]

@@MalachioftheForest Oh I don't assume that at all, I am well aware. Especially since most people on Earth are spiritual, it would be extremely arrogant to believe otherwise. Like I said, as long as we aren't making decisions about politics, society, etc, based around spirituality then we're good.

[@biologicalengineoflove6851]

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge." - Stephen Hawking

[@CountingStars333]

Wheelchair bro who made up string theory which has no proof.

[@biologicalengineoflove6851]

@@CountingStars333 who cares, its still a good quote, testing theories is how science works

[@CountingStars333]

@@biologicalengineoflove6851 There are things science will never explain, For those things we have spirituality. You can believe they don't warrant explanation but that's just your belief.

[@biologicalengineoflove6851]

@@CountingStars333 On the contrary, I believe things we can't explain do warrant explanation, but "spirituality" doesn't explain anything. One doesn't solve a mystery by appealing to a bigger mystery.

[@biologicalengineoflove6851]

@@CountingStars333 Unfortunately your comment was deleted, so I was unable to read what you believe about everything around us. I assume you believe everything around us is somehow related to the spiritual. Well, you are correct that I look down on the term, and I was going to ask you the same thing, what you meant by it. I only used it because you did, that's why I put it in quotes, as far as I can tell it's a meaningless buzzword with as many definitions as there are spiritualists. If spirituality weren't mysterious then it wouldn't be so tied in association with mysticism, and there would be more of a consensus on what it is. The idea of invisible spirits came from seeing the breath of life leave the dying, before we knew about oxygen and respiration. If everything around us were somehow related to the spiritual, then we should have a reliable way to detect that verifiably. And plenty of people go around claiming to be little spirit-detectors. But revelation is necessarily first-person, and hearsay to all others. If spirits exist, they are indistinguishable to us from being non-existent, and we're left without a good reason to think that they do. Which is more likely, that the person is intending to deceive, are themselves deceived, or that the thing is true? In a way spirituality is not mysterious and explains a lot. It's just superstition, a faulty way for folks to come to terms with uncomfortable realities like the limits to our knowledge, and mortality. If spirituality were a pathway to truth then it wouldn't lead to inconsistent conclusions about what it is.

[@superfluousnscrupulous9458]

As much as I appreciate the aesthetic of mysticism, it's a kick to the gut when people take it as absolute truth because it almost always directly leads people down a very scary conservative pipeline

[@thepeopleslibrary8673]

Most polytheists I know are not certain of anything. I think people who fall into this kind of pipeline are people trying to rebrand their Christian mindset with European pagan aesthetics. But really, there’s nothing certain in polytheism and animism, only direct experience, and those experiences have zero to do with politics. If anything, the polytheists I know are extremely anti-capitalist. In the American continent you have Native American populations who still identify as Animists-Polytheists. In the American continent you also have Afro-Transatlantic religions (such as Louisiana Vodun, Umbanda and Hoodoo), and many of them are very aware of oppression issues, gender nonconformity and so on. Gender nonconformity is actually incredibly common in people who become “priests” in polytheist societies, whether this is part of the native culture (such as a Mudang or a Wu Shaman), or whether this is a reconstruction or revival of historical deities.

[@kx7500]

which he never did.

[@BrandyBrans]

See... Mysticism, as I have experienced it, is an antidote to the sort of dogmatic attitude that you hold absolute proof. To me, the mark of a true mystic is a sense of playful curiosity and mental flexibility.

[@kx7500]

@@BrandyBrans literally exactly how I feel about it.

[@Olivetree80]

How does it though? Most mystical, spiritual people who don't ascribe to one religion are left leaning.

[@eelvis1674]

When we die "the energy has to go somewhere, the information has to go somewhere". "The energy has to go somewhere"; we know where that goes. All of your energy is consumed by other organisms over time, and then dissipated into the universe in the for of heat as a byproduct of metabolism. "The information has to go somewhere"; SOURCE?! If by information you mean our memories etc. Those don't exist physically they are just the product of strong neural pathways. There is no reason to believe infromation has to be "conserved" in the same way energy is. If you burn a book what happens to the information? It just disappears.

[@shinjidz]

This guy is litterally doing the "if it's my version of religion it's okay" bit

[@justinhutchison9866]

The patience, consideration, and unexpected beard comb are next level.

[@randyohm3445]

I absolutely loved "I would empirically disagree." What an amazing line. The man's entire worldview is about accepting things as true without evidence, and he defends against negative outcomes of spirituality by "empirically disagreeing." Fantastic.

[@bazookallamaproductions5280]

this guy is practically living with two separate brains, that entirely contradict each other, and the more you press him on the contradictions, the more he doubles down and says theres no contradictions.

[@lil_weasel219]

cognitive dissonance works that way most people have contradictory beliefs

[@user-uq4gr5nl5o]

Doublethink

[@Correactor]

Politics and spiritualism/religion are not discussions that belong together, unless you're discussing why they shouldn't be discussed together.

[@alexanderboulton2123]

Religion shouldn't influence science, but science should influence religion.

[@ticker0157]

Or unless you live anywhere on the world, and theres literally no way to brake apart unless religion finally dies

[@marilynmalone1381]

Religion should not influence politics but political activists need a spiritual side.

[@alexanderboulton2123]

@@marilynmalone1381 exactly

[@kkounal974]

I feel like we should reclaim spirituality and not confuse it with religion. For example Wikipedia says this about spirituality: "Modern usages tend to refer to a **subjective** experience of a sacred dimension and the "deepest values and meanings by which people live", often in a context separate from organized religious institutions. This may involve belief in a supernatural realm beyond the ordinarily observable world, personal growth, a quest for an ultimate or sacred meaning, religious experience, or an encounter with one's own "inner dimension". " I think this is the direction we should take it, not political, strictly subjective due to its very nature and a different thing than organised religion because people inject whatever trojan horse into religion. If spirituality is important to some people alright, if some people want to do a Kierkegaard not my cup of tea but alright, it just doesn't mix with politics.

[@void-creature]

I really liked this adaption of "the Last church" personally, Vowsh did a surprisingly good job as the god emperor of mankind

[@Hawkwood96]

I've been a staunch atheist for as long as I can remember, but I can sympathize with the guest's honest intention of wanting to broaden the movement into something bigger and better. What he's saying isn't impossible to achieve, it just isn't best-practice. I'm 100% on Vaush's side here, but still, it's nice to see some honest debaters with good intentions.

[@themachine5647]

It is great to see debaters with contrary opinions who are coming in good faith. It's too bad that this particular opinion is just plain wrong and not productive for society. I'm not a staunch atheist, I'm simply not that confident in anything and think our understanding of the universe and particularly the conscious experience is woefully limited and inadequate, BUT I firmly believe answers to these deepest of questions lay down the path of systematic exploration, rational exploration and testing of hypothesis. If there is "something greater than ourselves" out there, we won't find it with ritual and happy thoughts and flute music any more than a cell of a body will come to understanding of the body they belong to by doing "cell things."

[@Hawkwood96]

@@themachine5647 totally agree. I think that's what most atheists believe. There isn't sufficient evidence to back up mythical claims, so trying to forge a better world through science and ethics is where most atheists can at the very least broadly agree. If there was evidence of divinity and people remained atheists, I'd then say that the atheists in this scenario are making a more egregious error than the evangelicals of today.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

There is nothing to be gained by adding fairy tales to our list of beliefs. I think "human rights" is a pretty solid set already.

[@afqwa423]

@@Hawkwood96 We divide atheism/theism along broad ideological trends for a reason though. The thing is that as a atheist, proving the existence of a god to me, in most cases, would just convert me to a misotheist or a dystheist. If there were a benevolent god, it would not demand my worship nor take sides against me simply for not worshiping it. If it does those things but manages to do some good as a product of its actions, then it's really no different from any king that ever existed, just with more power. Such a god would need to be abolished. In actual practice, theists aren't just making a bland scientific claim about the existence of a god, they're making a prescriptive moral claim about your subordination to a divine authority or force of some kind. I have grown to hate neopagans more-and-more as time passes because they feel entitled to your respect for the cockamamie "traditions" that they just made up on-the-spot and demand you take their magical powers and larp seriously. Like all the puking and mewling spiritualists of their ilk. They're authoritarian bottoms, essentially. In this aspect, they are no different from the worst evangelist I've ever met.

[@Hawkwood96]

@@afqwa423 yeah, we agree on everything, then. I'm only saying that if there was hard evidence of a God, atheism as we know it would have to either be abolished entirely or change into something unrecognizable. I think the guest just likes the aesthetics of paganism, which is still unacceptable in my world view, since any level of mystical thinking in the broader, cosmic sense tends to lead people down illogical and sometimes bad roads in terms of humanitarian outcomes. That being said, the guest strikes me as someone who is on the road towards atheism. He values science, and seems to want everything to make perfect sense within his decent ethical framework. I think he's wrong and misguided and has a few blindspots that secularism could and would amend, but I won't condemn him as I'd condemn an evangelical Christian or a pagan who doesn't believe in science. There's a gradient to how much I condemn someone. Also, vibes check, the guy seems well intentioned and honest, so even though I disagree and I back everything vaush said (and would say it all myself), I stand by my original statement and say I'm glad he came on and had a chance to speak. Maybe vaush planted a seed that will help him change his mind, or maybe those who think like the guest will change their minds. Either way, it's worth it.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

A good boomer friend of mine believes in a kind of bastardized internet Buddhism that's taken from animal spirit google searches and god knows what else. She's been really helpful in my life recently. I decided to talk to her about my highschool pals who live on a reservation here in Canada overdosing and dying recently. Plus some suicides. How weird it is to have kids my age (20-22) dying before they even leave our hometown. How lucky I am to have moved out of that boring shithole Hicksville community. Her paraphrased answer was, I shit you not: "My understanding of death is very different than most people. I believe that in everyone's life they have many 'exit points' where their spirit can 'choose' to 'move on into the next life.' So your buddy Ashton overdosed because his spirit was finished with this life and chose an 'exit point.' Our spirit/soul bois choose these things even subconsciously." So Ashton both chose to die and didn't chose to die, but also he didn't die because he's going to be reincarnated and there is no personal tragedy of losing this friend I played basketball with, nor is there the loss of his potential career and his life beyond 20 y/o. I live how this completely skips over any political explanation or solution to the injustice. Why to people who grow up on reservations face higher levels of suicide and drug overdose? Is it because those places are economically devastated and boring, bc of multigenerational trauma? Because of hidden sorrow, like abuse, in his family life? Because his friends encouraged him to try hard drugs? All these questions swept away by some "it was meant to happen" and "he kinda willfully chose to die, actually, on the metaphysical level." For Christ's sake was it unhelpful.

[@TheAmericanAmerican]

What you experienced and explained right here is one of the biggest reasons why I left the catholic church after 29 years and went full anti-theist. Almost 3 decades of being told "it's God's plan" for almost every single question/critique I had for so many bad things in this world drove me to finally snap the **** out of it all! Science, math, logic, and reason can and will forever give us the answers to ALL of our questions eventually given enough time. Religion has served its purpose for humanity and has been irrelevant for a LONG time now. Let's finally end its misery!

[@TheAmericanAmerican]

What you experienced and explained right here is one of the biggest reasons why I left the catholic church after 29 years and went full anti-theist. Almost 3 decades of being told "it's God's plan" for almost every single question/critique I had for so many bad things in this world drove me to finally snap the **** out of it all! Science, math, logic, and reason can and will forever give us the answers to ALL of our questions eventually given enough time. Religion has served its purpose for humanity and has been irrelevant for a LONG time now. Let's finally end its misery!

[@7TheWhiteWolf]

My second big issue with Christianity is on the slavery thing, even when you regard the Old Testament, Paul specifically tells slaves to be obedient to their masters in the New Testament, both the kind and *cruel*. Does that kind of thinking seem divinely inspired? Or is it merely a product of the 1st and 2nd century AD?

[@gamingnerd3476]

I think they used their belief in God to justify cultural norms, not that the almighty itself influenced them

[@7TheWhiteWolf]

@@gamingnerd3476 Pretty much, sadly the world hasn’t changed much...

[@adenjones1802]

@@gamingnerd3476 "They used God to justify cultural norms" We found the guy who doesn't know the bible or history but talks confidently about both ladies and gentlemen.

[@adenjones1802]

No we are supposed to submit to slaver the same way we are to submit to being being hung up on a cross as well.

[@themajesticspider-man6116]

@@adenjones1802 People today are literally using god to justify cultural norms, dimwit. You talk about someone speaking confidently about something they supposedly know nothing about, and here you are... A bit slow on the self-awareness, are we?

[@haunted7937]

honestly i just try to keep my political beliefs and my spiritual beliefs separate. not everyone has the same spiritual beliefs as me so it makes no sense that policy should be made based off of it

[@jordanmoore7340]

Conservative Christians use the same technique to justify not loving their neighbors politically.

[@WiloPolis03]

THANK YOU. It's ridiculous how easy it is for people to not get this pretty simple sentiment

[@haunted7937]

@@jordanmoore7340 no dude that’s the opposite of what i’m saying 😭

[@aneveningwithebola2727]

Exactly. What I use to cope with the fact that we're all gonna die eventually doesn't dictate my spot on the political spectrum.

[@Montewtf]

I keep my spiritual beliefs to myself in all aspects

[@rainbowkrampus]

This whole conversation was supreme irony and an excellent illustration of a historical trend. When a religion is marginal, its adherents preach about passivity and love. As soon as they have a little power though, that's when the blood starts flowing. Most of humanity was "pagan" for most of our existence. There was no time of peace and love under past pagans. There is no reason to think your cutesy shrine building is going to result in anything but more of the same given time. Also, I loved it when they suggested that the best route is by trying to start a religious war. That's what you get when you run around trying to convert people to your fairy tale. People tend to be kinda invested in the specifics of their stories and will fight you to death in order to keep their version "pure". Also also, gah, I wish I could pull these people outside of their own heads for one minute and make them listen to themselves. Hopefully they'd recognize how utterly incoherent they sound. It's just layer after layer of nested meaning which winds up running in on itself or pointing at absolutely nothing.

[@zkapsh]

Once they get a little power do you think they will push to bring back human sacrifice like the Norse or Aztecs did?

[@rainbowkrampus]

@@zkapsh Mm, probably not. It's not like knowledge of natural processes would just stop existing. Animal sacrifice in general emerges as a kind of "ultimate appeasement" to the god when things really aren't going your way in terms of war or weather. Remember in the ancient world that animals were incredibly valuable for their labor and as food sources. So their value as sacrifice to a god, literally removing that animal from your economic prospects, was a huge loss. Human sacrifice is a step even above that and still most groups never, or else very rarely ever, practiced it. Humans are incredibly valuable in terms of labor output and breeding after all. Most of the accounts of human sacrifice we know of in the old world are thought today to mostly be slander against various groups. Propaganda, basically. In the places we for sure know the practice was going on, it was very uncommon and periods where it became more common were often very brief. The whole concept is vastly overblown in our time thanks to sensationalized media exoticizing the "savage". Assuming some radical shift occurred in the next hundred years and some neo-pagan movement really took off in a big way, even with the worst effects of climate change it's not as though civilization would regress to the neolithic or something. Not to say you might not get some one-offs from random groups of crazies. But you'll get that pretty much anywhere at any time with any dominant culture group.

[@zkapsh]

@@rainbowkrampus I know I was just making am extreme example of religion given a little amount of power have the ability to turn around and be reactionary.

[@infinitivez]

As soon as a minority belief system is a majority, they'll fight like hell to demonize anything that would threaten their position. It's kinda what humans do naturally.

[@cegesh1459]

@@zkapsh Maybe not no. But any religion will turn on society and others. They will have their own theocrats and some will want to kill people they don't like. That's simply how cult works. You can see this even with cults. It's the Same thing every time. It will never change. It can't. Religions are poisen to humanity.

[@martinsriber7760]

None. As for pagans specifically - just because you have less baggage and cooler lore than Abrahamic religions doesn't mean you are any less wrong.

[@IMatchoNation]

Yeah it's like just because your hipster religion hasn't been in a position to cause a lot of harm recently doesn't make it good.

[@thenewestdivinhell8979]

Agree

[@amellirizarry9503]

i feel like a lot of his arguments boiled down to “most people will have a tendency to be religious so we may as well lean into it” like what even that has to do with the truth of matter?

[@jordanmoore7340]

A few centuries ago, you could have made the same argument about racism and sexism. People unironically still make this argument about racism, citing a mythical "innate tribalism" that, according to them, we just need to go along with and consequently accept racism as a way of life. Fuck these arguments.

[@TreiberSeptim]

I like that the guy, however unreasonable, stayed cordial.

[@DarthScrewtape27]

“The energy needs to go somewhere, the information needs to go somewhere” The energy does yes. Probably ambient heat and the decomposition princess. The information? No. It’s gone with the gray matter. Same way that brain injuries can cause a person to lose their memories.

[@GageEakins]

Yeah what he is talking about is getting into the physics of consciousness. We really don't understand how consciousness emerged or how it actually works. Until we create an artificial form of life, we won't really know. But as Vaush and many others have said, filling our gaps of knowledge with god is a stupid idea.

[@BRAINSPLATTER16]

I always look at religion as just a backdrop for your beliefs. It's completely divorced from the specific moral systems you ascribe to, but it's just like a cape you wear because you like the color. So like how I say "God damnit" whilst being a fervent atheist. Or how conservatives base their ideology on disgust and revenge despite saying they're Christians. You can still have religion, just make sure you realize your Bible or Quran is as good in discourse as a wiki fandom entry.

[@FelisImpurrator]

I view it similarly. Except from a psychology background, I interpret it as a sort of... cognitively reaffirming narrative that people use to give themselves more ability to cope with uncertainty. If people can't have confidence in themselves, they often look for it in external sources. If they can't deal with uncertainty, they come up with rationalizations to explain it away. And by itself, that's fine. It's a way less unhealthy coping mechanism for life than drug addiction or gambling or anything. But the issue is that organized religions are political factions that use religion to secure hegemonic power. So what actually happens is that religious power structures basically try to beat everyone around them into accepting their narrative because that makes people compliant with the demands and ideological goals of the ingroup. It's just the "teach slaves Protestant work ethic to make them compliant" grift. Edit: To clarify. I want to explicitly state that the shit evangelical organizations pull is no better than pickup artistry. They basically rely on tactics similar to negging. Break down someone's self-esteem and create a vacuum of confidence or certainty in the future, which gets filled by "God" in this case. They try to force the conditions that make people seek out religious belief, to consolidate power. They make the problem to sell the solution, like every other authoritarian power structure or greedy business. Naturally, organized and politicized religion is therefore incompatible with leftism. As is all dogmatic adherence to the words or validation of another person elevated into authority.

[@mageIIan]

I think its better framed as religion as the backdrop for one’s biases

[@CountingStars333]

There is no Bible or Quran, for my beliefs, only underlying idea that it's all for a purpose. You can have an underlying idea that everything comes from nothing and has no purpose. Ie atheism adjacent thoughts

[@BRAINSPLATTER16]

@@CountingStars333 ?

[@CountingStars333]

@@BRAINSPLATTER16 Atheism is a belief as any other belief. Agnosticism is not a belief. Like you say, the Bible or quran is as good as a wiki entry, I agree. But same goes for you, Atheism is a belief. You cannot be atheist after looking at the world, how it's built just like fractals, built like lego blocks as you look down and down from the macro to the micro. Every proton is the same, every electron the same, but different arrangements of them make up all our diversity, everything working in set constants, or multiples of the same constants. Energy is transmitted in discrete bundles. You cannot look at such complexity, which is at the same time simple enough to understand.... And think yeah it just exists for no reason at all, and just came about all by itself. Or is some sort of weird computer simulation...... The world is a marvel, and no atheist can answer the simple question - Why. You can answer - How and What. Spiritually I can explain it easily.

[@85percentnation]

The Vaush Antitheism Arc continues! I appreciate the increase in prominence that Antitheism has gotten in the last couple of months, as for years I've felt like left-wing spaces have been generally hostile to the ideology just because of the New Atheists & the skeptic KZbinrs.

[@ezhanyan]

as an antitheist i've always known he was hiding his power level. i'm glad he's open about it now hehe

[@kx7500]

yes, and rightfully so because freedom of religion and spirituality can be a good thing. Anti-theism relies on saying all examples of spiritualism are the same.

[@unclebobboomergames]

@@kx7500 fundamentally they are. The thinking process is the same. They have the same weakness. Antintheism isnt about making people unable to be religious

[@dappershinx9234]

@@kx7500 No it doesn't, in the same way antiracism doesn't assume all instances of racism are the same. Microaggressions and legal discrimination are not the same in content or severity; both are bad.

[@kx7500]

@@dappershinx9234 except thats a false equivalence, racism is something harmful that directly contradicts empirical evidence whereas the spiritualism that the guy here is talking about is just like he said, extra empirical, meaning it doesnt contradict it whatsoever and empirical data is always placed above metaphysics etc, but it's just a way of interpreting what we dont know yet in a way that correlates with what we already know. you can be spiritual and even religious and have zero contradictions with acting like any other scientist, only it may make you happier, feel more cnnected to the world, may give you a better ability to interpret things, or even simply open your mind up. you can choose to just drop these ideas too or reconstruct them to fit better with reality no problem if they ever come into contradiction. Why do I never see this anti-theist sentiment equally against people who actively believe there IS no god when there's an equally unjustified belief there? I think it's okay to be either and not even necessarily irrational if you're able to let go of these beliefs easily. spiritualism is like imagining the path ahead thats past the horizon, different people will believe different things about that path without the ability to know ever in the near future, some may even believe things outside the norm, but if they believe so unmilitantly and are just interpreting things differently but once we reach there are proven to be wrong and they drop any beliefs that contradict reality, I can't see anything wrong with that. I hope you read all that instead of skimming too. to be clear I'm an anarchist and my anarchist beliefs have only led to me coming to where I am now with this stuff. being anti-religion is bigoted.

[@JRexRegis]

I dont know why people always try to make religion or spirituality "important" to politics somehow. I, myself, am pagan. I have a little altar and do my little rituals on the solstices and everything, but it's not something that touches on my political beliefs in any way, and I am well aware that it's called "faith" for a reason. I'm a leftist because leftist ideals are desireable to me and conservative or neonazi ideologies are abhorrent, not out of any spiritual reason. The one problem I always see with other spiritualist people is that they're so insecure in their own beliefs that they need to color their entire lives - they need it to be "important" somehow to everything they do, and I just don't get why.

[@maxgustafsson7802]

But a belief in most religion almost forces a change in your politics. Most religion includes some form of objective morality, that is held as absolutely correct. If you then see something in politics that contradicts this morality, of course you will want to change it!

[@zacheryeckard3051]

Can you explain how your peculiar view of how the world IS does not help to shape and define how you feel the world SHOULD be?

[@veganvanguard8273]

@@maxgustafsson7802 This is an unhinged position. The two do not have to conflict.

[@JRexRegis]

@@maxgustafsson7802 I can't tell you the answer to this because my "religion" doesn't have objective morality. My particular flavor of paganism holds that humans are the ultimate arbiter of human morality, since the gods all have differing aspects and trusting them to dictate morality would be foolish.

[@JRexRegis]

@@zacheryeckard3051 Everything I do or think shapes how I feel the world should be. But I don't disagree with any aspect of my beliefs, meaning there is no functional difference between my ideology as I hold it now and my ideology as I would hold it were I not a pagan. I'm not a Leftist because my faith demands it, I'm a leftist because leftism is a worthwhile cause that aims to make the world better.

[@skylertaliesin3132]

It’s hard for me not to physically cringe at the beginning arguments here, even as a self-identified pagan, because the stuff this person is talking about is shit that we discuss thoroughly in pagan circles, but to an antitheist it’s going to come across as an attempt at rationalizing a fundamentally incorrect worldview. I can completely, 100% understand someone coming to that conclusion and engage with counterarguments to keep myself grounded even as someone who considers himself religious. When we’re fighting for workers’ rights or against the tide of fascism, it doesn’t matter to me what someone thinks of my religion, frankly. What matters is that we have the same end goal and the same methods to reach that goal. If I’m not being discredited or prevented from doing work for the left on the basis of my religion, then I can’t see how this, let’s be honest, very moderate form of antitheism is of any real consequence.

[@leahbroadwater9544]

Yes!! Exactly.

[@SimpCity2000]

Well put

[@TheExterminatorGuy]

@@MalachioftheForest I completely disagree. I don’t think advocating against a belief system and saying it’s harmful and bad; and therefore we shouldn’t do it, is a hop skip and a jump from advocating for genocide. Unless he’s had some very spicy rhetoric I’ve missed (which I’d love to hear), his advocacy against religion and mysticism is just as genocidal as his advocacy against conservatism or flat earthers

[@TheExterminatorGuy]

@@MalachioftheForest yes. But that isn’t genocidal, no more than anti conservative or anti flat earth rhetoric. I would say the clubbing people over the head rhetoric is hyperbolic. It seems out of character for him to legitimately say violence is our only option against theism; but if he did say that and mean it verbatim, that’s cringe and unbased. I think an argument could be made for that being true for fundamentalist Christians, but I don’t think pagans are as insane as fundy Christians.

[@TheExterminatorGuy]

@@MalachioftheForest there’s a lot of beliefs out there we gotta force out. That ain’t genocide rhetoric

[@jacobjohnston3983]

“People thousands of years ago imagined a god of Thunder with a hammer and named him Thor. Now, we know that there’s an electromagnetic field covering the earth and that’s sorta kinda related to thunder, so clearly those ancient people were right about the guy with the hammer.”

[@shocknawe]

Look, love. Be as religious as you like. Just accept, however, that faith is not founded in empiricism and that you formed your religious beliefs based on some search for comfort. Now, to me, the rundown is: I’ll believe something once there is enough proof of the thing’s existence. Full stop. I wont believe before that and I think no one else should either. Do you want to know the truth or be comfortable? That’s your choice. If you have ANY belief that is immutable, that no matter the amount of evidence brought to you, you wont change it, then to me you are way more lost than you think.

[@kx7500]

if you believe that you shouldnt even believe in empiricism and just be a solipsist

[@themajesticspider-man6116]

@@kx7500 ??? Their view is entirely revolved around empiricism, so why would they believe in empiricism? Also, solipsism, in a way, goes against empirical analysis since it says the "self" is the only thing that is real and exists, everything else does not and just imagined. That is not at all what OP's point here was.

[@William1w1]

Yeah. A lot of religious people will claim we're the same as them in that we put our faith in science like they put their faith in gods. Here's the key difference that demonstrates how beliefs I hold are not based on faith. If new evidence showed, say, that the origin of species was better explained by some theory other than evolution by natural selection, I wouldn't be _sad_ about it. In fact, I'd be excited to explore new hypotheses. Religious people, on the other hand, will not switch to new beliefs based on better evidence, and they have a strong emotional connection to their ideas about metaphysics, causing them to feel negative emotions when their ideas are challenged.

[@galacticpotato607]

@@William1w1 "If new evidence showed, say, that the origin of species was better explained by some theory other than evolution by natural selection, I wouldn't be sad about it. In fact, I'd be excited to explore new hypotheses." i have yet to find a pagan who didn't approach science in this way, *un-organized religions* are much different than *organized religions* and i wish non religious ppl would take this into account when thinking about religion, also, church & state s h o u l d be separated, politics and religion don't belong because ones moral values aren't based on their religion, its the usually other way around.

[@galacticpotato607]

i should clarify that organized religions try force their beliefs on others, if anyone disagrees with these organized religions about something, they are (historically speaking) demonized, un organized religions depend on the individual to come to their own conclusions about things (at least in my experience)

[@piprod01]

Conservation of energy and mass is a thing. But I've never heard of "conservation of information". He is probably referencing entropy increasing overtime. And because there is less pattern it takes more space (or information) to fully describe that system). I can see two major misunderstandings behind this idea: 1. "Information" in this entropy sense isn't relevant to anything you could possibly desire. A rock is incredibly "information" dense in this kind of definition, and humans and their brains aren't any more information dense. 2. Entropy(information) isn't conserved, the overall net amount of entropy is what increases. You can have areas within the system where entropy is decreasing and that information is just gone, so long as somewhere else in that system it increases. This is why Creationists arguing that evolution breaks the third law of thermodynamics are wrong (they fail to account for the fact the sun is in the system). You can burn a book and all that "information" is gone forever but the entropy in the system actually increases. I think a lot of these woo ideas pretending to be based in science are all based on a fundamental misunderstanding of specific scientific terms that also have common meanings. The idea that an "conscious observer" is required to break down quantum superpositions is super common misconception.

[@juasjuasi4750]

i am pretty sure quantum scientists have theorized that information itself cannot be destroyed, which is why black holes existing is a very big deal in the theoretical science since they have to come with an explanation as of why information is not lost when it enters a black hole.

[@RP-vi8fx]

Entropy is not information, and quantum mechanics REQUIRES that information is conserved its literally the foundation for the black hole information paradox

[@austin7761]

@@RP-vi8fx Conservation of information has to do with state properties of a system, like angular momentum or mass. It makes no statements on the continuity of consciousness or other spiritual matters. At best, you can say that it produces a determinist worldview, but until we further develop our understanding of quantum mechanics, that is an unanswered question.

[@jellewijckmans4836]

@@RP-vi8fx Information theory and entropy are directly linked. That's what Laplace's demon is all about. Which is why the term information within physics is in fact often used as a specific type of entropy or a specific way to represent it. The quantum sense of information is basically the exact same thing but because it never looks at macro systems it never converts it to generic entropy. Entropy Isn't a real unit it's laws are actually just probability done over enough elements and it is in fact a direct measure of information or more actually possible information.

[@SpiralSine6]

“I was actually pulled to paganism through One Piece.” What a whacky guy.

[@dukeofbread2545]

I think the problem with spiritualism is once you've accepted it into your framework it opens you to all conspiratorial and magical thinking imaginable. That's how I've always explained my opposition. Theism I usually center that on the damage of religious institutions.

[@radkesrealm]

As someone who has been watching the Athiest Experience for years, this was frustrating.

[@7TheWhiteWolf]

I think religion and politics should stay separate. That said, religion has a tendency to make it’s followers hate specific groups, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are essentially the entire reason why the LGBT community faces hate and much much MUCH more in America, the Middle East and Africa.

[@veganvanguard8273]

That does not make it inherently so. I say this as a queer occultist.

[@philosphorus]

Religion and politics go hand in hand! Read Cicero! There is no separation! It is a lie!

[@ObiJohnKenobi67]

That’s more so because of general western prudishness during colonization than actual religious stuff. I mean look at the Middle Ages when Abrahamic religions were dominant and you will see multiple high ranking LGBT figures in Europe, West Asia, and Africa.

[@gideon903]

hey, don't rope Judaism into this, we're pretty progressive folks

[@opalharness1555]

Maybe just maybe saying something to the effect of "i started believing in religion again because I saw DBZ and thought it would be cool to shoot energy beams from my hands" is not a good debate tactic

[@austin7761]

Tbf, that would be pretty cool.

[@spikem5950]

Maybe, just maybe, trying to take religious topics into debates isn't a good debate tactic in general.

[@socialist_vocalist]

The position of the spiritual left should be this: I believe things that I can't prove because they make me happy, but I will not try to make any aspect of my politics about converting people to those beliefs or making society nurture them. The position of the non-spiritual left should be this: Some people believe things that they can't prove because it makes them happy, and we shouldn't be mean to them as long as they don't try to use those beliefs to push for policies that aim to convert people or make society nurture those beliefs. It really doesn't need to be more complicated than that.

[@xx_isabel_the_wolf_xx3869]

THIS

[@spikem5950]

I really wish both sides could get on board with that. I don't want my pagan beliefs to influence how politics are done, and I'm tired of antitheists lumping me in with fundamentalists who do that shit. At the end of the day I just want healthcare and a good quality of life for everyone, the planet we live on to not die, and for a democratic decision of who runs the country with a strong separation of any church and the state so fundamentalists can't screw our country up. I wanted that before I became a druid and that conversion hasn't altered my moral or political views in the slightest.

[@zerologic7912]

Spirituality must be immanent. It has to come from within, based on your experience and worldview. It can't come from without, and it can't be imposed externally. At that point it becomes spiritual abuse, which is what religion is. I think that is the fundamental difference between religion (which is inherently abusive and authoritarian) and spirituality (which is inherently liberating). Mythology, spirituality and such are merely an expression of your unique experience of your own being. Only you can define what that is. Edit: This is why I think we need to go beyond the whole theism vs atheism dichotomy. If you believe in some unifying deity or force or principle, that's cool. If you believe in none of that, that's cool too. If you believe in something else entirely, that's just as cool, and it's something our binary understanding of religion (god vs no god) tends to ignore, and this is also true of much of Western philosophy. You may see the world a certain way, but nobody else has to. The problem arises as soon as you start trying to "colonize" other people's worldviews to impose your own.

[@nostromo1131]

I couldn’t agree more!

[@malum9478]

and what are we supposed to do when the thing that makes you happy causes you to believe that genocide of the natives is right and just? or that interracial marriage is wrong? the issue is that these ideas can be reached easily once you leave the world of rationality. once you stop believing that things like evidence matter, all it takes is a hallucination for you to believe that the sun is telling you to kill them all.

[@thatguy779]

God I hate the “what if people see different colors” thing. It literally doesn’t matter what you specifically experience because fundamentally it doesn’t change the reality that we’re both looking at the same color and using the same name to refer to it. The sky is blue regardless of what blue feels like to you

[@philosphorus]

So shallow!

[@ravenhopkins347]

“I have issue with prominent religions” what you don’t understand is spiritualism negates empiricism which is used by fundamentalists to justify anything they want. It’s not spiritualism that is itself the issue, it’s the logic people use to come to the conclusion which is wrong

[@davidrichardson3001]

the new atheist movement warped into the alt-right; many neo-nazis are atheists and some are religious. People negate empiricism to justify whatever they want. what movement they use as a conduit to that outcome is pretty evenly spread over whatever current social trend allows the ideas to get attention. Atheism does not make things better or worse, it's just a different way to interpret the world.

[@ravenhopkins347]

@@davidrichardson3001 yes, but look at the statistics amongst the atheists. A VAST majority are democrats or independents unlike most other religions. It’s the framework. Obviously people will use whatever they wish to justify hatred, but if your life is based around a rejection of evidence, you’re going to apply it to most other places. A lack of theology and spiritualism on the basis of logic Will tend to lead you to beliefs based on what’s demonstrated to be real

[@cceste6885]

@@ravenhopkins347 I disagree that spiritualism is the framework that leads to a rejection of evidence. The the issue lies in the inability to be open to being incorrect. Spiritualism can be an additive belief- it doesnt reject any science, but adds something to your worldview that has not been proven. Believing in something that hasn't been proven to exist has a different mental foundation than rejecting reality to justify a belief. Plenty of people who are atheists have biases that reject evidence in place of what they believe they know to be true. It is the steadfast faith in our ability to understand (and be correct) that results in the rejection of evidence. "logic Will tend to lead you to beliefs based on what’s demonstrated to be real" which is a good foundation, but the ability to believe without evidence is an important part of happiness for some people. Depressives, for example, can't use logic to escape the cycle. This is because they are unable to experience the world in a rational way. Believing that something will help actually increases the chances of it helping, so believing without evidence, that something will help you escape the cycle can be the thing that pulls you out.

[@davidrichardson3001]

@@ravenhopkins347 its an interesting take, but it also has a strong Christian bias attached to it. A lot of neurological advances have taken place from people studying meditation with the scientific method who happens to be Hindu, which comes with its own baggage. You have to look at all of your biases to achieve a rational answer. You are not going to be able to get rid of religious people, so we have to learn to work with them and keep things like divine-appointed Christian soldiers being given a free pass from sin so they can assault people. The argument of they can start thinking like me or they are wrong is the same argument that theists are using. It does not lead to anything other than conflict. That is the point, the discussion is not rational, it's just biases fighting biases. We do not have any strong correlation that atheism leads to a better understanding of empirical reality. The entire left movement is based on theory and is not based directly on empirical reality. Do I tell someone that says they have gaydar that there are no psychic phenomena and it's just your interpretation of certain social queues filled in with confirmation bias? In this case, I found a lifelong friend discussing the nature of gaydar and empathy, even if the gaydar and empathic abilities are not something that I rationally believe in. It created a bond and an ally to the movement. Which is what we need to engage in.

[@ravenhopkins347]

@@davidrichardson3001 we can’t get rid of religious people but we can get rid of religion. Look at many Scandinavian countries like Finland where religious people are now a minority. It’s not insane to think

[@ronwisegamgee]

One of the biggest things that pisses me off about people like this pagan is that they will wedge in anything they can possibly think of before admitting that they may be wrong, let alone employ Occam's Razor.

[@willowwright4638]

love that the religious guy instantly deadnames a trans woman literally like three minutes into the conversation, very cool of them

[@willowwright4638]

Also not a fan of vaush not correcting them on it but, that's clearly more mild you know?

[@deismaccountant]

I didn’t realize it until rewatching the vid afterwards, and I once again deeply apologize for the slip up.

[@unclebobboomergames]

Who?

[@BrandyBrans]

I like the way you want to castigate the sinner for what was probably an honest mistake to demonstrate your virtue for your secular belief system. Very nonreligious of you.

[@willowwright4638]

@@unclebobboomergames oh he deadnaes Abigail Thorne pretty early on, when he was talking about the video on witchcraft, at about the 3 minute mark

[@49perfectss]

"Why can't we include magic in our ideology?" What a stupid fuckin question at its base.

[@gideon903]

This guy's main argument is "we need spiritualism to be wrong so science can come along and correct it"

[@sariathebrave5259]

Vouwesh?!? You mean to tell me that the battle against the Everlasting Dragons never happened? Then please explain to me how we exist? Something had to have started the Age of Fire.

[@BornOnThursday]

He didn't even address it! Vaush bad

[@thekingoffailure9967]

Is your god similar to Thor or Aphrodite?? I'm sure I can find an approximation for your god to help me explain why you're wrong.

[@rainbowkrampus]

Listen, as an anti-theist, I'm cool with people starting a Dark Souls religion. Just know that I already have a looooot of head canon and that the wars fought over whether or not Gwynevere was ever real will be fought tooth and nail.

[@sariathebrave5259]

@@rainbowkrampus oh yeah I’m ready to fight to the death over my own personal interpretations of the holy sacred item descriptions.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

"My faith has empirical scientific backing!" *misunderstands science and extrapolates wildly*

[@gothboschincarnate3931]

not yet, your were born a thousand years too soon. come back in a thousand years and give me a shout out!

[@justinakkerman9196]

It's nice to see Vaush doing anti-theism debates. It's funny that so many of these spiritual people say that they're tired of the left villanizing spirituality even tho one of my problems with the left broadly is that they don't villanize it enough. Michael Brooks was a legend, but the big mark on his legacy was how wrong he was about religion. One thing that doesn't get addressed enough either is that spirituality (astrology, in-particular) gets marketed to women the most, and in my experience it makes them highly susceptible to manipulation. There's an anti-women angle to even the more progressive forms of spirituality.

[@deismaccountant]

Oh hey my debates up! Hope I can improve my debates and content in the future! Again shout out to OceanKeltoi!

[@ellcaa4220]

You can start by changing your religion to something defensible. Like... IDK, atheism or something. Cuz man, Socrates himself wouldn't be able to defend your position. Edit: That aside, I think you're a nice guy tho, with heart in the right place.

[@Xonlic14]

@@ellcaa4220 "You can improve by becoming the thing I want you to be. Until then..."

[@deismaccountant]

@@ellcaa4220 I mean, a lot of the first philosophers were explicitly polytheist, and what I have feels way more defensible than most any if not all religions I’ve found.

[@bloo9699]

That's you? A nice voice you have there! fit for radio :)

[@deismaccountant]

@@bloo9699 it would take a lot of investment for me to get started in any of it sadly 😅😅

[@dragonairlover]

these debates are always both very fun and extremely painful for me to watch as someone who would self-identify as a christian but also is perfectly capable of saying in any situation which calls for it "god isnt real". god can be as real to me as i want it to be, but that's the thing - it's a personal issue which should effect literally no one else on earth except me. to me, religion and spirituality are fun flavors you can add to your life as a personal choice, but when it comes to how you actually think about other people, and especially politics, it should rarely if ever show up. you can't rely on the magical structures you've been taught or, yes, even the one's you've come to a conclusion about yourself, to guide the way you think about the very real structures around you and what's effecting real people and their lives. i can wax lyrical in my head about how we might all be connected and how special it might be that god made each of us unique or whatever, but at the end of the day if literally even one person doesn't believe in the same genre of spirituality as me, that's it. it's no longer applicable in a broad sense. i need to adjust my thought processes to account for those differences and to find what's best for everyone in the most encompassing way possible. basically what im saying is that i don't agree in a total sense that no one could ever possibly believe in spirituality and also be a rational thinker at the same time, as i feel that's exactly what i am. i think the problem lies with the kind of people who would actively try to argue that point on stream, especially while trying to tie their beliefs into their political worldviews while doing so. so i probably do agree in at least the sense that when you try to mix the two and start to rationalize the irrational that it at best becomes a cringey display of failed logic and at worst leads to... well, whatever the right are doing.

[@XioriannaEBDjinn]

"I'm cool guys I promise, I don't believe in the tooth fairy, honest! It's only in my own head anyway and it's just a personal thing, so whatever." -

[@spicylemon6255]

@@XioriannaEBDjinn You good?

[@kittencorp.3295]

‘God can be as real to me as I want it to be’ You are describing the same sort of cognitive dissonance fascists have, where they hold two completely contradictory beliefs and switch between them at a moments notice.

[@dragonairlover]

@@XioriannaEBDjinn never said i dont believe in it, so at the very least i’m not hiding behind that. you can find someone else to make fun of for that i think.

[@dragonairlover]

@@kittencorp.3295 not really sure how this is the exact same thing, although i think i see where you’re coming from. i just think that there’s a difference between saying “i like to believe there’s a bit of magic out there since life is short but i can set that aside to look at facts and process the real information that’s being given to me” and the actual denial of facts and empirical evidence when convenient. i honestly dont wish to become the monster i foretold, though, so i don’t think i care to really argue it any further. i feel perfectly comfortable in my ability to use logic and reasoning, but i also completely understand disliking the concept of mysticism and spirituality. i see the jumps in logic and the presumptions these people make and i can’t deny what it looks like. i’m biased towards my own intelligence so feel free to think whatever you want of me.

[@FabbrizioPlays]

"Of course you think it exists! You've been dragged into a world where you think anything can happen, but that's not how it works." -Ghastly Bespoke, *Skulduggery Pleasant* Felt this quote was relevant.

[@MagusMirificus]

I think it's important to be able to talk about "Spirituality" in a broader sense than religion, or the religion-lite that is the whole new age industrial complex. Spirituality can refer to pretty much everybody's subjective, emotional experience of whatever philosophical precepts they subscribe to; an empiricist is not necessarily any less spiritual than an idealist, in that sense. I think the promotion of finding spiritual fulfillment in LIVING, not in doctrine or ritual, has tended to go along with socialist politics quite well (See: the first parts of the 60s counter-culture, before new age took over), and in fact socialist politics are kind of hard to sell without that because otherwise facing the reality of the apocalypse we've been living through since the industrial revolution leaves you depressed and ineffective (See: the current online left). I agree with Vaush that rejection of most older forms of spirituality is necessary for the project, but I think that can only be accomplished with an understanding of why people practice them in the first place and how those needs could be better served. "You should renounce your faith because it is a convenient delusion that allows you to ignore truth and excuse suffering" doesn't sell near as well as "You should renounce your faith because the deeper connection with the world that you seek is LIMITED by these beliefs; whatever 'Holy' is to you, your rituals and superstitions give you less of it, not more".

[@SplotPublishing]

Seeing a mechanistic future is not depressing. It's freeing. You become depressed when people tell you that the only alternative is depression and loss and lack of community and a death spiral. None of that is true, though. It's just the remnants of the belief system humans have convinced themselves of and can't seem to shake. Atheists aren't all pessimistic, nihilistic, sad, lonely, and trudging toward their inevitable death. Death has always been all our final end point. And you have a whole life to live in the meantime. We don't need to lie to ourselves to be happy. It actually helps to be a bit realistic. This is all the life you have. Isn't it great?

[@jordanraiber2102]

I think you are broadening spirituality to such an incredible degree that even asking the question "are you spiritual" is meaningless because by your own words everyone is spiritual. If you just want to say that everyone has their own experiences and we shouldn't ignore that, then nobody is going to disagree with that. The obvious problem is believing things without good evidence. people justify this by saying it's their own spirituality and that everyone else has to respect it. NO we don't. Not all beliefs are equally justified and not all deserve respect.

[@ATurnip]

@@SplotPublishing No, not at all. It's depressing and horrible to hold in your heart that nothing you do has any value and will, from your perspective, be retroactively rendered non-existent once you die. Even more bleak is the horrible and depressing idea of the inevitable heat death of the universe, which will retroactively erase us all, so we don't really exist since time will be erased by it, too.

[@MagusMirificus]

@@jordanraiber2102 Yes! Exactly! Everybody has a personal sense of spirituality in the same way everyone has a personal philosophy, regardledss of whether they're familiar with the discipline or identify with any established school of thought. A philosophy is a set of abstract precepts, which we experience subjectively and emotionally; it tells us what is good and evil, what is relevant and trivial, whether to choose one course or another, things we don't experience abstractly but viscerally. But just as "God did it" is rather immature as a philosophical framework, "Just don't be an asshole" is kind of an immature spiritual framework; it's free of the trappings of religion, but doesn't satisfy the sense of narrative purpose that people seek out from religion in the first place. Spirituality need not have anything to do with adopting a particular set of metaphysical beliefs, only the recognition of oneself as a being that requires meaning. I don't believe in anything Supernatural whatsoever, but I actively cultivate a sense of wonder, awe, and curiosity about the inexplicable existence we have. That might seem like something incredibly trivial to advocate for, like "What does it matter if some schmuck sees the universe as beautiful or repulsive, as long as he supports socialism", but I think it's sort of obvious that a peaceble, purposeful mind is gonna be more reliably sound than a paniced and directionless one, so advocating for spiritual health--simply as a component of health broadly--is good and necessary praxis.

[@MagusMirificus]

This is why Vaush's blanket-use of the word "Spirituality" is bothersome to me; he gives out spiritual advice all the time, but he doesn't see it as such because to him spirituality is just when you adopt irrational beliefs arbitrarily, and everything else is just "Knowing how to live", which is an impossible subject to discuss without understanding the sense of narrative and meaning that humans Require from their lives. It reeks of Good Upbringing privilege to me; Vaush was brought up by a supportive, liberal, upper middle class family in a major city, getting the constant message from his environment that actualizing himself was possible and commendable, and now gets to giggle at the disgrace of Jordan Peterson having never been in a place of such existential confusion and desperation that getting sucked into an empty promise of Meaning in This World At Last such as his was ever an option. I worry about the free real estate the left leaves for people like him, not to mention all the lefties who basically think of America as the Dragon of Chaos they must defeat because they're just as symbol-driven and unselfaware as Peterson's fans, and are using politics as a source of spiritual fulfillment. Recognizing that the need for narrative is NOT rational is the only way to avoid allowing it to destroy your rational faculties, because otherwise it will overrun your life and convince you that it is TRUE reason and the WORLD is irrational.

[@Prometheus1464]

The world is dark and scary. Don't hide behind a lie of toxic optimism. Find things in your life to be happy about, don't force others into your happiness.

[@bazookallamaproductions5280]

spiritual religions be like "even though my beliefs rely on the exact same logical shortcomings that every other religion does, im still different somehow uwu" 👉👈 if paganism was the hegemonic power group, wed have pagan fundies chainsawing little boys hands off for banging the wrong rocks together and "angering thor" or something.

[@cceste6885]

I think the issue is that a "religion" that doesn't adapt to our knowledge of the natural world leads to logical shortcomings. For example, you can be an animist but not contradict any scientific realities

[@thecat.645]

As a pagan, no and what the hell

[@cceste6885]

@@thecat.645 Whait a minute, are you saying that you can be both spiritual and accept scientific fact?!11?!

[@TheArtistKnownAsNooblet]

I thought about becoming pagan once, not because I believed in it but because I liked the asthetic and ritual components. Basically I just thought it would be cool to larp as a witch.

[@jordanmoore7340]

You just described most pagans.

[@illcomeupwithacreativename4096]

@@jordanmoore7340 unironically true

[@pikemand1410]

That's literally why almost all pagans are pagan, it's just that they're also too lacking in self-awareness to understand that's why they do it. Like, take Wicca, a pagan pseudo-religion that is as made-up as religions can get, every part of how it was invented is documented and it's all based on the long debunked 'Witch-cult hypothesis'. No one with any degree of critical thinking could possibly take it seriously as a belief system. Yet thousands of weirdos the world over unironcally self-identify as Wiccans and perform wacky witch rituals. It's 100% aesthetics and nothing else.

[@8bitdiedie]

@@jordanmoore7340 and most “witches”

[@0oidiedinatimemachineo024]

I went through an occult phase reading all about ritual magic and all that stuff and I never quite thought like this but yeah it is a TOTAL fucking larp. Like ngl at the time I was into all that stuff I "believed" in it but in the back of my head I knew there was nothing to it lol Its all a psychological thing... the human mind is powerful af.

[@BruhWhyDidTheyChangeThis]

My guy is out here explaining lore of his little nerdy community and sharing his personal opinions. It’s very entertaining how in his own head he is.

[@kx7500]

not a skewed belief at all

[@rainbowkrampus]

"Me and my 5 friends are going to change... (checks notes) the most populous religion in the country and on the planet. Yessiree."

[@ubahfly5409]

This man really said, "Here's my wacky pseudoscientific theory which I'm pretty confident describes reality, but in fairness, I haven't yet VERIFIED it w/ oThEr PeOpLe." 🤣

[@kx7500]

disrespect in the comments here....

[@markusoreos.233]

@@rainbowkrampus Wasn't christianity literally the same shit?

[@NeoRipshaft]

I'm like a minute in and I almost choked on nothing when he mentioned Sam Harris as a COUNTER ARGUMENT... like, Vaush didn't bring him up, it was the caller... the person arguing for spirituality... Sam Harris... the dude who advocates for spirituality and also is entirely disconnected from empiricism and consequentialism.... which is also required for spirituality to mean anything... I do not hold high hopes for this interlocutor lol

[@rainbowkrampus]

Oof, I forgot about that (watched the stream). Yeah, hell of a yikes moment.

[@jellewijckmans4836]

When this guy started talking about Qbits and information being preserved it set of huge alarms in my head. A Qbit is just a number between 1 and 0 represented in the super position of a quantum particle. That means you can do some interesting and potentially very efficient math with it but it's not this magical mind bending thing people pretend it is. Also within physics information can have slightly different meanings. It can either just be another way of expressing and thinking about entropy or it can refer to reverse the calculation. For the first definition information can just be turned into heat as it does in any electronic device a trillion times per second and in case of the second it's still a debate whether or not black holes delete information. Either way this guy clearly doesn't know what he is talking about and is just using cutting edge science he doesn't understand to make his BS seem more legitimate.

[@zerologic7912]

simplistic pop science really be fucking up our culture

[@jellewijckmans4836]

@@zerologic7912 While a lot of pop-sci has a lot of legitimate issues I don't think you can blame quantum woo and this type of spiritualist BS on it. Quantum mechanics could have been this dense insular thing and Deepak Chopra would probably still be talking basically the same nonsense.

[@jordanmoore7340]

I fucking hate when these lunatics read a pop-sci article and think it means they can justify their irrational nonsense with blatantly misunderstood physics woo. Makes my fucking blood boil.

[@jordanmoore7340]

Leave spiritualism to the dustbin of history. Embrace rationality and empiricism.

[@lwakvra]

coloniser rhetoric

[@jordanmoore7340]

@@lwakvra A reminds me of B. B bad. Therefore A bad. Flawless reasoning. Would you prefer I replace "spiritualism" with "irrationality"? Even better.

[@perfectlyfine1675]

@@lwakvra if "rationality is good" is coloniser rhetoric, then are natives of any kind just inherently irrational? You do realise what exactly you're trying to prove, right?

[@lwakvra]

@@perfectlyfine1675 If that were the case I wouldn't be defending mysticism and spiritualism, would I?

[@perfectlyfine1675]

@@lwakvra your answer doesn't even make sense.

[@bhig3]

Yes. I'm totally fine with these kinds of debates. So long as there are debates :)

[@minecrashinhard]

As a spiritual person ... *Screams*

[@Alex-0597]

Nothing more painful than listening to a religious person try and explain how their particular brand of unverifiable claims are _completely_ different from another religious person's unverifiable claims. I feel really bad for this guy. He sounds earnest, but completely unable to understand how detaching yourself from empirical evidence and accepting "spiritual evidence" could possibly lead to someone getting bad ideas.

[@Lerasium]

vowsh makes a bunch of good points but has he considered the unlimited power of our lord and savior symbols?

[@asherroodcreel640]

I use the power of the Hitler mustache so scare away the parts of small childen and woman with dogs

[@William-Morey-Baker]

this mans obsession with the existence of symbols was bizarre... he kept saying people will misinterpret the symbols you use, therefor paganism superior to anti-theism...

[@asherroodcreel640]

@@William-Morey-Baker people put meaning into the weirdest things, I've never understood it as someone who will chuck out any old modle for a new one as soon as it makes more sense

[@Lerasium]

@@William-Morey-Baker I don’t get his obsession with that word either. Maybe if I watched one piece I would understand.

[@amellirizarry9503]

i don’t think the law of conservation of matter/energy can apply to human conciseness, because a mind is not an object is a set of processes that can be interrupted, kinda like a software, if you trow your laptop into the river you wouldn’t say that all your documents are fine because of the law of conservation of energy

[@krazykris9396]

But could in theory reconstruct those documents in a way that it was arranged exactly the way it is in the computer.

[@amellirizarry9503]

@@krazykris9396 what? how? you mean like you have a backup or you made all your docs anew from scratch? in that case, it’s wasn’t the law of conservation of energy that saved your documents

[@krazykris9396]

@@amellirizarry9503 either

[@amellirizarry9503]

@@krazykris9396 ??? so why would any of that happen to a human mind after death?

[@krazykris9396]

@@amellirizarry9503 it's just a philosophical idea. One such is the swamp man (where someone is vaporized by lightning, but an exact copy is made by another bolt of lightning). Although a more practical example is the idea of mind uploading.

[@lillebror1567]

45:05 "By your logic, you'll say we'll never know we'll get to socialism, but like, we still have to try, right?" Well, we would never know until we're actually there. Faith is more than spiritualism; trust, confidence and hope are three examples of this.

[@gothboschincarnate3931]

Faith is for those that lack experience. Who can have trust, confidence and hope in false beliefs that cant be experienced? The first thing a cult tells you to do is not trust in your 10 senses.... (5+5) or in your experiences.

[@danielkostenko8189]

Putting religion into politics is like putting a jackhammer into dentistry

[@thecat.645]

That sound s,like a fun time

[@BeanyBabe420]

It always makes me cringe when people confidently and unflinchingly state their affiliation to some super niche subgroup like progressive paganism or whatever but have absolutely no understanding of the implications of their beliefs and completely fail to defend them. Felt similar to the noncompete debate. Like it just feels like the aesthetic of belonging to some hyper niche faction is the real priority for this person.

[@rainbowkrampus]

Unh unh, I'm Thor Odinson. Unh unh, Loki had a point.

[@kstar1489]

Many of the pagan’s arguments sounded similar to Christian apologetics in their logic (as myself an ex Christian). It really reminded me that religion and other beliefs like it all often have similar thought patterns and ways of justification no matter the different flavor.

[@cbunny6671]

"You gotta find the right god that describes the right force" Firstly, that's not how science works, you're just looking for coicidence at that point. But more importantly: I don't care who discovered gravity, or when. That's why it's a DISCOVERY, not an invention. I can prove gravity exists, I can't prove thor.

[@Pensive_Scarlet]

I've had too many spiritual experiences not to be a spiritual person. I also have the understanding that they have been *my* experiences and I have no authority to impose them upon others.

[@WiloPolis03]

Absolutely based

[@sarinabina5487]

same!!!🤝

[@andyrihn1]

You are arrogantly insisting on the infallibility of experience. Human experience is demonstrably fallible. Gas leaks, temporary insanity due to hunger, insomnia, etc, sociological priming, the mere fact that memories are always ad hoc constructions.

[@Pensive_Scarlet]

@@andyrihn1 I do not remember stating anything about infallibility of experience. That was you. You did that. *Or did you!?* Maybe I'm dreaming this? I guess a dreamed experience is somehow less meaningful than a waking experience because... wait, that would involve putting faith in my fallible ability to distinguish between waking and dreaming, shouldn't do that. Hmm, okay. Maybe I'm a solipsistic god machine and I invented you just to increase the robustness of my complex self-improving systematic conundrum facilitator? Yeah, I'll go with that. Another! (smashes virtual mug, folds virtual arms in defiance)

[@andyrihn1]

@@Pensive_Scarlet “I’ve had too many spiritual experiences not to be a spiritual person”. Is the insistence that your experiences are infallible. I’m sorry you’re such a moron that you think an ironic appeal to solipsism is in any way a response to the fallibility of memory. I don’t share your brain damage. Talk to a cognitive behavioral therapist

[@TiffanyStarrxxx]

"Listen Vaush, that other guy follows a CRAZY religion. Let me tell you about MY religion" -a crazy religious person.

[@raywilson641]

This guy talks a lot about symbols. I value the use of symbols as well. Language is a use of symbols to impart meaning and thought from one person to another. Stories are just a complex use of symbols to create and impart meaning. I love reading fiction that introduces concepts that introduces ideas that tests my philosophy and makes me think. However, I realise from the beginning that everything I am reading is fictional and merely a thought exercise. Symbols can bring people together. Ideas of optimism and upholding the common good is found throughout fiction and can help uplift a person with a new perspective. Religion on the other hand does that but asserts that nonfalsafiable claims should be accepted. A piece of fiction is just presenting an idea where religion is just telling you to trust it. Religion is using symbols a willing departure from observable reality whereas the scientific method looks to use man made concepts, symbols to minimise subjectivity for the purposes of approaching the objective part of reality. I think this guy is at a crossroad. He can take the step and say he wants to be as objective as possible and be become an atheist or agnostic or he can just admit that he is a part of a denomination of his religion attempting to assert that out of all of the religions he thinks his is correct and objectivity comes second to faith.

[@Sqwivig]

Yes! This 100%!

[@chickensalad7199]

As someone who practices some form of spirituality, this is spot on.

[@Stevies_Precog_Gym_n_Spa420]

He could just value this stuff anthropologically like as a discipline but he seems to think his personal hot take on religious symbology being workable into pantheistic systems of knowledge is more important. Dumb

[@mckenzie.latham91]

“I leave symbols for the symbol minded” --George Carlin

[@samuel_3874]

None.

[@FortuitousOwl]

People need to accept that no matter what their religion is, it just does not have a place in political ideologies. Because religion, no matter what religion it is, is faith based. Political ideologies need to be fact based. The issue with finding “proof” for religion is you are starting with the conclusion and working towards that, instead of seeing where the science goes. You see that trees might be able to think or whatever and your conclusion is “my religion is right because we kind of have a similar belief to that” but that’s not scientific thinking. Or like this guy said because energy can’t be created or destroyed that means reincarnation is empirical? That’s asinine. Also every single religious person has someone they think is “the crazy kind of religious” that they can use as an example for why their flavor of the exact same thing is somehow more empirical. Protestants will say Catholics are crazy, this guy thinks faith healers are crazy. But what exactly is the difference?

[@deadvelveteer]

I guess this makes me think religious/spiritual thinking just leads to a faultier insentive structure for reaching utilitarian ends. As in: taking the empirical approach to an unknown is just "I don't know, let's try to figure it out through direct observation" and taking the religious spiritual route is just "I know! It's this totally arbitrary thing I came up with on the spot let's stop thinking about it now." To me it is obvious which leads to better outcomes.

[@norababcock]

I'm of the religion of asking questions to a magic 8 ball and rolling it till I get an answer I want, then going from there. No bad outcomes.

[@unlikelysuspect5491]

Nature being alive is more of a philosophical argument then a scinetific one, like how fire could be considered alive or even your calculator by some definitions, and depending on how consciousness work they could have a very low form of consciousness. The amount of consciousness a brain cell might have by itself

[@deismaccountant]

Pretty spot on IMHO.

[@Ellipsis115]

This is a good lesson on someone stripping away thier argument until its meaningless. The opposition to spiritualism is that you are basing how you see the world on something non-empirical which if you make conclusions on that, which, yeah people make conclusions based on what they think to be true, then that's dangerous. But this guy was defending this by replacing it with the most vague terms, if he didn't strip too many of his actual positions, he would posit stuff like alchemy which provides 0 utility and was obviously based on nothing... which is kind of the point but if he stripped away further to try and make it defensible it would become more vague to the point he was just defending "symbols" by which I think he clearly meant deities but posited it as like sociology and pholosophy which kind of just made what he was saying pointless as it wasn't mutually exclusive *at all* to Vaushes world view - he is a sociologist after all. My point in, well pointing this out is that you will come across arguments like this all the time when you debate, mostly by people arguing in bad faith and the trouble a lot of people have is that they will oppose what the person is saying even though what they're saying has been so watered down that its no longer incompatable with what you're saying. So learn to just pause and think about the state of the debate or whatever works for you to not just simply oppose someone but instead be prepared to change course and say "so you agree with me?" and such even if they evidently don't.

[@mckenzie.latham91]

It is even surmised that the pursuit of Alchemy wasted a lot of minerals and materials over nothing

[@unclebobboomergames]

As much as you want. In a perfect world none. My entrance to leftist politics was losing my faith. The two are linked for me

[@deangraves7462]

Being leftist can be just as dangerous as being religious. Any ideology can be used to manipulate, and to justify evil actions. This is my problem with Vaush's argument. He is saying that religion is uniquely wrong all the time and that is not a historical fact. Any ideology that requires you to accept it without question, or requires you to be a bigot isn't a good ideology. Vaush is wrong because he has to generalize religion to justify his position. This is no better then generalize any other group or culture based on a personal bias.

[@unclebobboomergames]

@@deangraves7462 no thats not what hes saying. Hes saying all religions are wrong in the same way. Theyre all ewual glimpses of the untrue. They make the same mistakes. The problem is all religions require you to believe without question. Thats what faith is. Thats not how being a leftist works. What you mean is leader worship. Leader worship is bad whether thru communism or thru religion. I think the phrase is "the sleep of reason brings forth monsters." Anytime you try to get people turning off their faculties and follow the same danger is close to follow. Doesnt mean every religion or political party becomes a danger. But that the path they take will always make them vulnerable to it.

[@deangraves7462]

@@unclebobboomergames Faith does not equal Blind Faith. Vaush and you fundamentally misunderstand what faith is. Catholicism for example is a agnostic monotheism. Catholics believe in God but acknowledge that knowing God exists is unknowable.... Faith is belief without evidence and is not belief in contradiction of evidence. Vaush's interpretation of Faith is wrong, there are many historical religious figures and folks that question religious doctrine an didn't just believe blindly. In fact many of the early scientist were monotheist. Galileo, the author of the scientific method, was a monotheist. Vaush plays into the fallacy of the science vs religion. The premise assumes that the realm of science and religion operate in the same space when they do not. Science seeks to understand the observable universe. Being irreligious is seriously an erroneous position to take. It requires you to generalize religion and culture with broad strokes that you wouldn't accept with any other thing.

[@unclebobboomergames]

@@deangraves7462 and the way id see those people is i see them as good and pushing for things outside the doctrine. The problem is that every advancement made in science has always been at the behest of the religous. Every time a big discover turns our understanding upside down its always the church causing pushback. They go so far here in america to try and ban things like evolution at times because it disrupts their view. People who are religious make discoveries all the time. But those discoveries never point us to evidence of a being or force outside of the natural world. Religions USED to very much try to tell us how the observable world worked. And they had to get dragged kicking and screaming to today. The problem is precisely that faith is belief without evidence. Thats the problem. Because it leads to people believing in contradiction to evidence. To pretend otherwise is dumb. There are still people that will not accept the world wide flood happened despite all evidence that disproves that.

[@unclebobboomergames]

@@deangraves7462 and also that depends on what caltholics you ask. You go ahead and tell my grandmother "oh so youre catholic? So that means you understand you cannot KNOW god exists right?" And if she could understand shed give you very strange old mexican woman stares. Most catholics i know who are devout would never say that. Maybe the church may. But not its flock

[@hypnovertigo7200]

Very interesting would love more discussions like this in the future

[@asherroodcreel640]

How

[@deismaccountant]

@@asherroodcreel640 I messaged @Ocean_Keltoi , hopefully they’ll talk soon.

[@Nsuage]

I'm a semi paganish fellow (southern us folk beliefs) an I'm the first to say that my beliefs are my own and live in a separate space than literal evidence based science. Its more of a personal framework to make my inner world more interesting. Stories and cautionary tales more than religious doctrine. Totes with Uncle Voosh on this one.

[@shro4947]

He lost me when he said that Jews are victims of an abusive relationship with their God and not. You know. Bigotry.

[@mallardofmodernia8092]

Tbf the Abrahamic gods have been abusive and down right evil to a lot of groups, even their supporters if we take the stories as true.

[@7rgrov198]

Physics major here. Einstein laid the groundwork for quantum physics in 1905 and got a nobel price for it. Bohr contributed, sure, but if you would point to one person being responsible for quantum mechanics, guys like heisenberg, planck and dirac made larger contributions than bohr.

[@thatsinteresting3415]

I've never watched PhilosophyTube, but when I heard "Oliver Thorn", I knew shot was over before it began.

[@sasak369]

The caller said V's takes on kink at pride seemed "kind of swerfy". Did I somehow misunderstand Vaush's takes on that? Cause I thought the take was just "it's kinda weird if you're hellbent on parading your fetishes around in front of kids, save that for 18+ events" and I don't see how that has anything to do with sex work.

[@Francesco-gf1sv]

Recite the magical words "empirical evidence" and "scientific studies" and your spell becomes skeptic.

[@ericduff3139]

that snarky "quantum physics was Bohr." that was pretty rough.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

I'm sorry! Sometimes I'm like that ✨✨uWu ✨✨

[@popocaDice]

Me watching this whole fucking thing again and repeatedly screaming JUST BE A FANDOM IT DOESNT NEED TO BE REAL TO BE COOL JUST BE A FANDOM IT DOESNT NEED TO BE REAL TO BE COOL

[@amellirizarry9503]

he keeps saying that religion/spirituality are necessary because people need to find a common ground, like why can’t that common ground be empirically verifiable reality and every thing outside of that are people’s opinions and guesses

[@veganvanguard8273]

Okay? Then let pagans have their opinions. Doesnt harm you.

[@amellirizarry9503]

@@veganvanguard8273 i never implied they were harmful, doesn’t mean i can’t get annoyed with their arguments🤷🏾‍♂️

[@thekingoffailure9967]

We've had 10,000 years to find common ground religiously. Does he think having invented the internet to share our thoughts we're all gonna stop fighting? Shits getting wayyy more fragmented these days gfc

[@caldwell9-0]

i thought vaush was gonna wear a fitted cap backwards because of the thumbnail 😭😭😭😭

[@StormCrownSr]

It's so sad how often he comes to a lightbuld moment. "Look at the holy wars" MY GUY, EMPHASIS ON HOLY!

[@lallig8860]

"pffff nonono my beliefs are totally reasonable, you see i analyzed ONE PIECE &......"

[@justamustache2324]

Personally, I feel with a lot of left wing religious types want a community, a shared ingroup and outgroup.

[@Cyrinil142]

We're back in 2008 youtube everyone. Time is a flat circle. time for TJ to start doing the classics. Contrapoints needs to revive her old channel. Somebody raise Hitchens from the dead.

[@Kain59242]

this idea of a pacified acceptable religion that won't be used to control and won't dogmatize is a pipe dream.