President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Not to wade too deep into an argument with Azrael, but didn’t Nietzsche make this argument while also tearing down faith?

 

Religion may or may not be a system for teaching ethics and morals, but it is certainly not the only source of those values.

Aristotle’s Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

https://www.moralapologetics.com/wordpress/2020/11/30/making-sense-of-morality-plato-and-aristotle

Ethics - Socrates, Morality, Virtue

 

I'm not saying empirical or logical or historical arguments will succeed. I'm saying they can be made.

What, for example, is your objection to Communism?

The vegan example doesn't quite work, because 'veganism' isn't a systematized institution. It's a set of individuals making independent decisions. One may object to the cruelty of meat production. Another the environmental cost. Yet another the health benefits. There are as many 'veganisms' as there vegans.

And while there are lots of different varieties of Christians or Muslims or Jews, each group organizes itself around a set of commonly held beliefs and behaviors.

 

What does that matter? The person making the political choice is basing it on some subjective moral judgment. What is the line between somebody making a secular moral political decision and somebody making s religious moral political decision ?

 

Dunno ... did he?

 

Again, 'veganism' isn't a religion, so isn't subject to the same faith-based conditions and considerations as a religion. There's no central veganism institutional guidance on ethics or morality for example, nor does it require proselytization or conquest or conversion as one of its tenets.

Still, I may not be able to argue an individual vegan out of their individual beliefs.

But to say, as Alma does, that some expression of personal politics is a "religion" is inaccurate.

And how a voter arrives at their choice - research, party affiliation, randomness, hatred, love, the Church - and what backs up their willingness to burden others with it, is a fairly important consideration in a democracy.

My contention is simply that religion as it intersects with politics is a special case of argument and belief.

 

Reverend Johnson:
Order, order. Goddamnit I said "order".

Howard Johnson:
Y'know, Nietzsche says: "Out of chaos comes order."

Olson Johnson:
Oh, blow it out your ass, Howard.

 

I had not heard about this. Rep. Santos went live with a three hour rant against the people in Congress who he is convinced are going to throw him out as soon as they return to DC. He got very, um, colorful in describing them and the goings on in the back halls of Congress. Beau has a little fun describing it, and I won't spoil that.

 

I'm not sure about that, especially if the definition of religion as "a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance" is operative. I don't think these folks ...

... could be reasoned out of their position with facts, data and logic.

OK, then you and I can quit arguing, because you are of course right.

By the way ... today's was the Collect for a Universal Basic Income. I understand in some dioceses it is permissible to substitute the Collect for an America Made Great Again.

 

I don’t know. I know he was all about not following religion and bringing yourself up and if things aren’t fair, oh well. But I really don’t want to go reading philosophical books. I took a class in college and all I remember is government is complicated and I don’t want to read the philosophers if I don’t have to.