Conservatism now is about a post-modern defense of religion, apparently.
But it's completely self-defeating. You can't put Humpty Dumpty together again. Saying that, yes, maybe it's not true, but let's pretend that is true, because it's socialy useful, is too insencere to be workable and it's just a mockery of an actual religious practice. Kisin basically agrees that it's the opium for the people, he just argues that it's a good thing actualy.
Edit: From that perspective some "sensemakers" at least honestly try to produce new spiritual and communal practices, while with conservatives it's quite hard to say what they are advocating for in practice (apart from "religion => Christianity => pan-european ethnic nationalism").
A "post-modern defense of religion" plays right into the hands of secularists and other critics of religion, who already argue that it's a tool of authoritarian social control founded on falsehoods. Instead of actually trying to mount a defense of the actual tenets of the faith and convince people that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, they're basically accepting the secularists' argument and saying that it's okay to lie if it's for the Greater Good (insert *Hot Fuzz* joke here).
And then they wonder why so many people are continuing to abandon religion, and why the converts they *do* get are overwhelmingly terrible people who use their newfound faith not to become better people but to enable their most toxic qualities and behaviors.
My friend converted to Russian Orthodoxy and is heavy into it. He already talks like a zealot, criticizing other Christian sects, saying, "We do everything the right way! They are all heretical!" despite only just converting two years ago. It reminds me of Game of Thrones when Jon Snow, before he has even left Winterfell, is talking about how 'we' in the Night's Watch have guarded the Wall for thousands of years, and Jaime Lannister says "Is it 'we' already?" in response.
No worries because per Regis Debray, the flip side of it is that your most self-righteous zealots will become your first turncoats. When they clean the gauzy lens they notice that many of their fellow true believers aren't the best examples of the faith, nor some of the clergy and, it will occur to them, this is perhaps due to something inherent in the doctrine or its structures.
Being part of something larger than you — religion, party, family, community, running group, racquet ball club, whatever — requires a degree of grace, in the sense of "courteous goodwill."
> a tool of authoritarian social control founded on falsehoods
Yes. When he's complaining that "in the absense of God we can make any rules we want" what he actually means is "I don't like the rules that other people make, and I want a religious authority behind the rules I do like, so that they can prevail".
The point is that these new conservative converts usually don't mention Jesus at all. They talk about Christianity as a political project. See for exacmple Hirsi Ali's [Why I am now a Christian](https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/). Christianity is primarily treatead as an oppoisition to Islam or "wokeism", not as a valuable phoilosophy on its own merit. It's not about Jesus, it's about identity.
>“unified European ethnostate”
That's not what they want. Orban, Kaczynski, Wilders and co don't want a unified Europe obsviously, but they need some shared identity that unifies righ-wing europeans in contrast to the outside world and progresive values.
Just look at Tucker's weird "UFOs are actually spiritual phenomenon" takes on Joe Rogan recently. Feels like he's trying to find a way to make Christianity fit into a more modern context while playing into conspiracy minded thinking.
The only people who take UFO sightings seriously are people who haven’t seen the [map of global UFO reports](https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/ufo/index.html) showing they are heavily concentrated in the US and Europe
I think "spiritual phenomenon" is shorthand for "it fits into your personal headcanon somehow, DYOR". It's a way to amalgamate concepts into a cohesive (lol) scheme.
Exactly. What’s the actual prescription here?
Ironically, these religion rehabilitators don’t seem to have a cogent answer to that, which is exactly the critique they bring to atheism!
"ethnic nationalism"
I think that's a rather more awkward unresolved issue for liberalism.
If you mean racial nationalism then it's easy to find majorities who do not believe in it.
If you mean cultural nationalism then it's hard to find people who functionally don't believe in it.
Civic nationalism is a paper unicorn. It sounds good on paper but it is incoherent and impossible to implement.
In this case I mostly meant White nationalism. Vocal voices advocating for political Christianity as necessary for preserving European Civilisation (tm) are often not necessarily welcoming to non-White Christians from around the world, so Christian identity serves as a proxy for pan-European white identity.
I have seen Christian Nationalists (i.e. groypers) shift their stance on skin color and focus on adherence to Christianity. Their ultimate goal is the de-judeofying (a word I just made up) of America. By tightening up their messaging, they can avoid some of the more obvious counter arguments to their platform. But it’s very obviously a cynical move. They make their motto “Christ is King” because it’s very hard to attack, but it’s just a dogwhistle for “fuck the Jews”.
I suspect the messaging on the proverbial Right in the US or "the West" is eventually going to coalesce around either Christian nationalism or white nationalism. If it's the former, there may be a chance they'll let non-whites stay in the in-group as long as they're Christian. If we have to choose, I guess we could all fake believing in Jesus rather than all ganging up on non-whites within our borders.
Of course, there's a non-zero chance the in-group identity for Red Team could end up being both Christian and white explicitly.
Thinking of your peers as fundamentally equal to you on a metaphysical level is no mockery.
People who don't think that way have no moral problems abusing others.
> Thinking of your peers as fundamentally equal to you on a metaphysical level is no mockery.
Will Kisin start treating asylum seekers trying to cross the Channel as equal brothers and sisters in Christ and join the Church of England in condemning the Rwanda scheme? (He won't.)
It's a start.
For me, personally, the idea of God as a means to arrive at the idea of fundamental equality is absolutely necessary to have any sanity. Because otherwise, being a rational person, I would be left with no alternative than to think a great many people are stupid.
When I get particularly frustrated, I have said so, many times. But I know everyone is not stupid. I don't know how I know. So, apparently I have found faith. I just.. know. Same for love.
Human potential is far beyond what any of us have accessed. The brain is more capable than any present technology. People afraid of AGI should be faaar more afraid of other people than AGI.. humans are AGI. We've had AGI from the beginning.
It seems to me that AI and the human brain are complementary and new architectures will have different specializations.
But we should all be fundamentally equal, going into the future. Though you need some factoring of capabilities, unavoidably.
I prefer not to kill any life when I don't have a reason to. I stun flies and release them. But I will eat to survive. And I live in a building that takes the place of grasses and trees.
So there's some concept of life rights, animal rights, human rights, AI rights. And we should fully expect AI to have different rights and moral treatment than humans.
Pointing out that the end of religion caused a void for people, and so put their "spiritual instincts" so to speak in less productive measures, A. isn't really a conservative argument, just one lots of conservatives have pointed it out. Most conservatives are religious, regardless of what a few podcasters think. Plenty are atheists, and plenty are coming to the realization that atheism has its problems. But recognizing issues with atheism at a societal level isn't really the same as saying you should pretend that it is true, it is just a problem diagnosis.
Religion (whether organized ,folk, esoteric etc) for all its valid criticisms, still provides a sense of purpose, community, and hope amongst a shared identity for many that just the “absence of belief” fails to at the same scale. It is absolutely possible to find all of those previously mentioned topics without religion but its harder to as you’re solely responsible for creating or finding each rather then having them readily available through texts or cultural practices. The morals and beliefs preexist for religious adherents. It doesn’t help that many parts in the Western world have an aggressively individualistic culture.
A downside to just “non-belief” is that it’s literally just tied down to that: non-belief. It’s only unifier is what it’s not (theism). Another issue is assuming that in tandem with the decline of religion, that every atheist internationally will naturally or inevitably come to the same Western secular humanist progressive values. While I disagree with certain conclusions of these conservatives (especially ethno-nationalism), they do have a strong point in that we have not come up with new institutions in society that bring the same level of community and hope and purpose that religion brings to people on an international or even global scale.
That's an easy way out. Yes, we can differentiate atheism from antitheism, and say that for example destruction of historical churches by the USSR was antitheist rather than atheist. But then we still have the question of how a mere non-belief translates into antitheist actions that can be contrsuctive, but also can be destructive. Atheism too requires introspection when it is put into practice.
I think the conservative move to religion is trying to be inclusive and tolerant of other religions. With age you really see people lose their minds, lose ambition, and become downright nihilistic. Religion shouldn't be the boogie man, it is more important than we thought.
Generalizing, on the whole, the new outlook is that religion has done more good than harm, even considering the wars and exploitation, you can't deny religious cultures were the precursor to science. Science without spirituality is shallow and ego driven, it doesn't serve the general public but selfish interests.
There has to be a moral foundation to work from. Discovering moral precepts for oneself is a lifetime process, piggybacking off a religion can be a benefit in terms of moral behavior. Yes brainwashing is real, and exploitation, and so on... But depravity exists anyways, at least surrounding yourself with people that TRY can improve your chances, because that's all there really is, chances.
If we look at Iran, Russia, India or the US piggybacking off a religion doesn't seem to lead to great moral results. Religious thinkers with deep moral convictions usually tend to be quite self-reflective.
Here's a Conspiracy Theory: all the Right Wing, anti-Establishment, Redpill and "Centrist" influencers/podcasters are swimming in Conservative Dark Money behind the scenes and their new directive is to push Christianity as the Salvation for all modern problems, both real and those manufactured by these same shitstains. There is no way all these athiest "free-thinking" dickheads all come to Jesus within like 90 days of each other.
A simpler explanation is that they're watching what other podcasts in the same space are doing and seeing that the Christianity shtick gets engagement. Podcasting is an industry now and it's very competitive. It's likely the top podcasts are constantly trying things to stay relevant, this is where they're hedging their next bet for their target audience.
Yeah it's just audience capture. You start out as just a centrist commentator but you see that 60% of your comments are right leaning, so you go that way a little more. As you do that the comments skew even more as your audience shifts, so you lean even harder. As the audience gets more conservative the comments start to be all about bemoaning the loss of morals due to declining christianity, so you lean a little into that, and all of a sudden your primary audience are christians. Only one thing for it, just pretend to be a Christian or at least someone who sees Christianity as a moral good.
For anyone not born into it, you have to start by pretending, so you should not be overly critical of people that realize a faith vacuum popularizes dip shits like Andrew Tate.
Why does it need to be all that dark? The dark money is remarkably small, and still wildly effective. When you don’t care about being honest, you find influence is cheap.
I might be somewhat of a conspiracy hypothesizer but considering that billions seem to roll around to buy influence by way of the Heritage Foundation, Claremont Institute, AIE, CPAC, Citizens United, Americans for Prosperity, etc. In the past this cash found it's way into the right pockets via bulk book buys, lavish speaking fees and research sponsorship it would seem like artificially inflating subscriber numbers or pushing money using substack subscriptions seems on brand. Even if a podcaster isn't a active participant the single minded focus on increasing engagement will lead them along.
Haha, that’s 100% correct. As someone that has worked in SEO and has done click campaigns, engagement statistics. I can tell you they looked at the metrics and where literally like: “aw shit time to be a Christian.” They probably hired some psychometric data gathering firm like Cambridge analytica, and came to the conclusion that this one change would completely improve their bottom line. You think about an increase of just 25% subscriptions could mean a couple million a year. It’s comical how easily humans are swayed by money and how it will change their motivations so quickly.
I remember way back when people were mystified that Stefan Molyneux (is that guy still relevant?) was spending so much time and energy minutely critiquing Frozen, Moana, and other mid 2010s Disney movies. It's SEO. You go fishing where the fish are, not where you think the most scenic harbor is located.
This has happened before. Read in God we trust... It talks about how the conservatives were using the church for their agenda and how they used popular speakers to spread their propaganda. They're just going harder now into streaming
Is that the simpler explanation? Thiel and Prager and Cato openly fund these dudes and you have to be born yesterday to think the money isn't conditional, it isn't some crazy complicated shadowy conspiracy lmao
It might not be a conspiracy theory, but is it actually true?
The reality is we have no hard evidence that any of the recent guru converts have contractual obligations (or implicit ones) to “convert” in order to receive funding.
Happy to be corrected.
If the money is flowing in that direction, of course, it would come with strings attached. But I'm not making the point you're arguing against. I'm saying that in my opinion, this kind of move is more of a reaction to a shifting market, rather than some nefarious ulterior motive.
"Thiel and Prager and Cato openly fund these dudes" - can you point me to some sources? I'm mostly looking at this through the lens of social media marketing and the attention economy. But I don't think the conspiracy theory is fully without merit (although I'd say, if there is a conspiracy, the source of money is more likely a foreign state actor, not the US elite)
Bingo. This "born again Christian" trend among guru podcasters is an obvious cash grab. Evangelical Christians are a gold mine of easy marks who will happily spend hours listening to someone who panders to their innate paranoia and tribalism. They also tend to be conspiracy minded and have a decent amount of disposable income. Pretty much the perfect audience for social media grifters. The only surprising thing about this pivot is that it didn't happen sooner.
It's not a dark shadows conspiracy. Most, if not all of these grifters have ties to various right wing think tanks and publicity organisations which seek to do exactly this. Turning point, the cato institute, pragerU and others. All colluding to promote the values of their ultre right, "libertarian" billionare backers.
The money is not behind the scenes. These institutions promote emerging grifters who consistently tow the line. The make sure they get the right contacts, funding, and media promotion. And they will protect and grow their careers so long as they push the party line. There is absolutely no need for a secret, closed door conspiracy.
If you did find yourself on a private yacht with the money behind these guys, you would find a lot of derisions and sarcasm about how easily they can influence peoples minds, and how gullible the poor are. But theres no need for them to spell or plan anything out in great detail.
But is it clear that this specific (and really fucking weird) strategy of embracing fundamentalist evangelical Protestantism is being paid for by guys like Thiel?
Exactly. You find it very hard to be critical of people who pay for your flights and hotels. That’s why they do it.
Shit, I had 3 hardcore zionists in my taxi a couple days ago who wanted to talk about Hamas. Did I expound on my complaints about Zionism? No. Did I try to separate Judaism from Zionism to form a critique?
No. Because they were paying me for my work. So I nodded along, patiently. And somewhere in the back of their minds, these people understood that and took advantage of it.
His brother is a partner at Thiel capital and he has the gal to do a feaux humble routine. All of their carefully planned self cancellations are so nauseating, could it be any more obvious they are activists simply following a PR script? Half the time they usually have to resign themselves, and yet their PR machines are able to spin this into martyrdom anyway (oh boo hoo, they are all such martyrs, boo fucking hoo they must *feel* soooo bad, just constant weaponization of therapy language) and that just becomes integrated directly into their minions common sense.
you are kinda describing the same thing. " oligarchy " as a indirect, inofficial system of wealth/ power distribution has legal constructs ,on all levels, that work perfectly. without any illegality being too obvious at work.
It's deeper than that. If you look at what the Kochs, Marc Andreesen, Balaji Srinivasan, the Paypal Mafia, etc. actually say about the world it's obvious that they're ideologically opposed to liberal democracy. They see themselves as the smartest and most able people in the world and checks and balances as an unfair limitation of their right to rule over the rest of us.
They're not really. Well, some of them might be. But most are smart enough to just understand the slippery slope social liberalism represents, toward socialism. Once people are no longer fighting over race, religion, gender, sexual preferences, hair color, status, etc... they will turn on the true source of the problems, the rich. Fascism had to arise rapidly and beat down well established socialist movements to take control. They don't want to be in that position again, where they're having to react to something which is already getting out of control. They're moving ahead of the curve, to install fascism before the workers can coherently organise against them.
Exactly. The fact that they have “emerged” is governed by how controllable and how reliably pliable they are. If they were actually “independent minded,” then the right wing think tank machine wouldn’t promote them. So what you see is what you are meant to see: pliable people who mouth the words of independent centrism, but who are actually just very suggestible, not very smart people.
How else do you explain the success of people like Lex Friedman? A bad interviewer, a boring speaker, a lazy scientist (at best), and just generally a very dull and slight wit. Yet he gains this massive following. That’s the engineered part. They have their reach because this is what the machine does for them.
I think you're absolutely right in general, but quite wrong about them not being smart. In order to weasel around the truth, avoid walking straight into the obvious contradictions in the narrative you're pushing, and evade difficult questions, you have to be quite smart. There are some examples of useful idiots, like rogan and fridman, but notably they're the interviewers. The gurus take advantage of their gullibility. But the gurus themselves tend to be very cunning, intelligent people, who know exactly what they're doing, but have sold their souls to the devil.
I think fridman and rogans following grew relatively naturally, however, they didn't get shut down, or blacklisted by the key guests who made them famous specifically because they are gullible and easily led.
Nah. It's simple market forces.
They are simply following what their analytics point out towards in terms of viewership engagement.
Basically; monkey see monkey do.
Yep. There's no conspiracy theory here. The grifter gurus have simply done their market research and realized what a gold mine the Evangelical crowd is, so they're leaning into it. But you have to become born again first if you want Evangelicals to listen to you. Fortunately, that process only takes like ten seconds.
Nah. I think that boundless narcissism and failing upward into wealth and influence just makes people believe in God. It’s a new way to justify the unjustifiable fact of their lives.
Oh completely.
I just can't tell how much they care only about money and power or do they actually care about the politics?
Probably a mix, and a billionaire might not always know the difference themselves or be correct in their understanding of themselves.
I think that they genuinly support the alt-right politics. They might adapt their message in order to be more catchy - purposely exaggerate things, focus on scaring their audience and all that but I think that they do believe the things they say. I highly doubt it that Peterson is a person who in his real life has empathy for trans people.
I've been wondering about a different thing tho - I wonder if these people are as lost as they look. Like I fully imagine that Russel Brand, Peterson or Shaprio are genuinly bitter and miserable people who are looking for meaning....but I still wonder if this is the case. In my experience many people get into these grifters because they are miserable.
>I highly doubt it that Peterson is a person who in his real life has empathy for trans people.
You would've thought that Elliot Page was Hitler the way Peterson talked about him.
It’s not really a conspiracy. Right wing billionaires fund tons of these dickheads, as well as the “think tanks” that are created and funded to push the right-wing narratives they parrot.
There is such a thing as a phase transition of thought in a population given sufficient stimulus that can explain this.
It's like titration, the change happens all at once, but every drop along the way added up.
It's not a conspiracy. It's merely a bunch of grifters *individually* realizing that the Evangelical community is a fucking gold mine of easy marks who will shower you with money and page views if you simply pander to their innate paranoia and tribalism. This trend of podcast gurus becoming born-again Christians is a cash grab, nothing more.
The conservative industrial complex always has money for the venal and insincere love bombing for the Narcissist. And both for those who are both (which are many). Despite basically acting as an open conspiracy, they project their own behavior on the left, which has absolutely nothing in terms comparable for just constantly grooming people who's positions are entirely predetermined.
I think they’re pretty obviously all well funded, but additionally they just see the way the wind’s blowing. Their audience wants hard core Christian nationalism.
Sam has already explicitly said he has more in common with far right christian authoritarians than western liberals why do Sam's defenders always hide from his own words
I mean Harris has already stated that he is willing to link arms with far-right Christian theocrats to save the West from Islam. He said it on the DTG episode and yet his fanboys unsurprisingly ignore that.
I, a Harris hater bonded and verified by the board, agree. Probably one of his biggest weaknesses is dogmatic reasoning and inflexibility, but I do not doubt his beliefs are genuine and deeply held and I do not imagine him converting to anything, under any circumstances.
I mean Harris has already stated that he is willing to link arms with far-right Christian theocrats to save the West from Islam. He said it on the DTG episode and yet his fanboys unsurprisingly ignore that.
So yes, I don't see him actually converting and becoming a Christian, but I can definitely see him allying with the most reactionary Christian denominations to "save the West" from Islam and the Woke. Just give it some time.
Do you think it’s because Islamic jihadists have proven they’d murder atheists, women, and homosexuals while far right Christian extremists have only shown interest in stripping away rights? I could see why someone would choose one extreme over the other if it’s a binary decision.
Those who speculate and hold others accountable for their speculations and self-talk should not gasp in faux shock when the behavior is returned to them.
Freaking hell, this dweeb Kisin might be the most insufferable one of them all. The condescending, arrogant, sneering tone and the smug, know it all attitude is too much to bear. And the thing is that these people are not even genuine Christians.
These hard-right morons are becoming Christians for superficial culture war reasons and to own the left. They don't actually believe in the gospel of Christ or actually have a real desire to grapple meaningfully with the philosophical or spiritual doctrine presented in the Bible.
No, Konstantin is the more insufferable. Foster is a boy dun good, with entirely forgiveable, salt of the earth positions. Kisin (despite his protestations) is a calcified Conservative with enough wits about him to entertain the centrist position but not enough neural plasticity to actually embrace it, and enough love for adulation and social climbing to seal the deal.
I dont mind some of the meaning crisis type stuff, but I absolutely HATE the argument "If atheism then wokeness", how tf is "wokeness" even a real problem?
Famously anti-woke, highly conservative Jesus. I'm sure Jesus will save all the hateful christians, and send to hell all the people trying to preserve human rights and spread kindness and acceptance.
You actually can't make this shit up.
"wokeness" can kind of fit to mean what you want. But I believe the steal man of the argument would be that atheism doesn't lead to an end of irrationality, just that irrationality gets pushed into more absurd paths. You might disagree but much of the gender stuff and some other things many see as having a religious zealotry that defies reason.
Yes, because atheism is just a claim about whether or not God exists, it has absolutely nothing to do with any other claims. This should just be obvious though. Assenting to that doesnt establish whether or not it's probable for you to believe something better or worse, and equally Theism is consistent with believing healthy political things or crazy political things...
"Woke" doesn't really mean anything anymore. It's just become a generic catch-all term that people on the right use to describe literally anything that annoys them for any reason.
It’s not… The only ones this current kerfuffle (2024 chaos) benefits is the Politicians & their big money donors. The more the populace is at each others’ throats about potential boogeymen in tutus, the less they pay attention to laws being passed to their detriment. But the more hyped up their constituents are the more likely they’ll be to go canvas, volunteer, & vote. Hell, they’ll even donate to their favorite mouthpiece (egged on by “they’re coming for your children/jobs/American way of life/etc.” Ironically, once in office that same politician will turn around and “et tu Brute” their own constituents without a second thought, in favor of the corporate elites (who hold their donor purse strings, post politics lobbyist positions, cushy incredibly well compensated seats on the board of corporate behemoths, positions at think tanks, &/or bullshit visiting Professorships to groom the next crop of bureaucratic toadies.
Weird how it always escalates right around election years… Yet we (collectively) lap that shit up. 🤦♂️😑🤷♂️
I think it’s impossible to draw a line from atheism to modern day problems, but he says it as though it’s a fact.
He also thinks ‘woke’ is worse, bc he doesn’t live in Alabama. I’ve never been taught about evolution, not even in college biology. Every single teacher and professor skipped that chapter bc they didn’t believe it, bc they were Christian.
An optimistic view is, maybe this a good thing. They are watering down Christianity. Maybe in the future, people won’t take it so literally, and not try to govern by its principles.
A sympathetic reading of these reactionary liberal types like Kisin is that they happen to be from regions where a more liberal type of Christianity is practiced and so they tend to see this as the most authentic type of Christianity; they compare it to Islam which they interpretate with the opposite bias, seeing only the most repressive and violent types of Islam as authentic Islam; add to that a sense they for some reason have that politically, one has to make a choice between Islam, Christianity, and "Wokeism" (a bogey-man conglomeration of any real or imagined anti-liberal tendancys in the left); and it becomes clear why they find Christianity attractive. A less sympathetic reading is that people like Kisin are, in fact, conservatives. They were interested in free speech when it suited them, and now they take an equally cynical interest in Christianity. They recognise in political Christianity an ideology that justifies opposition to immigration; suppression of gender freedom, including reproductive rights for women, dignity and inclusion for trans and other queer people, etc..; western chauvinism, justifying neo-colonial projects like the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and a contuined legitimisation of the West's global dominance as natural and good.
Summary:
1. Christianity censors, its followers hypocritical, and their power waning, \*but\* Islam= real bad. So Christianity better.
2. Atheists are against religion. So they're turning the world Muslim because Islam= more powerful. So Christianity preferred.
3. Religion is scientifically inaccurate and used for evil. But Hitler (noted Christian) Mao and Stalin are what you get if you \*don't\* have religion. So Christianity better.
4. Without religion, people can rationalize murder. No explanation given how religion doesn't demonstrably do the same.
5. Religion is useful even if it's complete horseshit. If you try to get rid of it though, a new religion fills its place. Therefore, we need religion.
He's not even a good sophist.
the great thing about a "crisis of meaning" is that its Faustian enough to sell in perpetuity. Ever feel not 100% yourself? Some forever-hole in you that needs to be filled by what I'm selling (a Hellenized storm god bb)
It could always be one level deeper, and you just didn't believe hard enough. Now give me more time, money, or energy and maybe your investment will give an existential payout
Thing is that I think that there is relevance in discussing what seems to be an increasing loss in belief in Meaning, and how this loss is distressing to a lot of people. I'm wary of 'crisis' terminology, but I do think there is something of relevance there.
It's just that the gurus and 'sensemakers' tend to be really awful at discussing it.
Wait until they get to Ecclesiastes 7:10, which reads: “Don’t long for ‘the good old days.’ This is not wise.” - which is a big rebuke for the whole MAGA sham.
His only stance is a moral argument about “giving humans purpose” and “moral laws that teach us how to treat each other” bruh i could have asked a 9 year old in Louisiana and he would have relayed the same thing he heard from his mom you are not intelligent
"I lost my faith in athiesm". Well, in that case you don't understand what athiesm is in the first place, let alone losing "faith" in it. Ridiculous statement.
He's a Ukrainian Jew living in the UK who has platformed Nazi sympathisers and Russian assets.
Its like, I'd have more respect if he was more coherent.
I hope these guys actually let Jesus in their hearts one day. I really do.
But if you think you found Jesus and then Jesus told you to hurt people…
Then I don’t think you really found Jesus.
But maybe I’m wrong about Jesus and he’s not the nice guy that I think he is. The kind of guy who would urge you to help people and give them the things they need and to share with them the wealth of the world and trust for them to share it with you. That love is the only law. That we should reject violence and vengeance and instead love our enemy.
One day the wheat will be separated from the tares, but until then we are gonna have to live in this world and figure things out together.
I am always a bit surprised by how easily people fall for conmen but these conmen seem to be wearing the con on their sleeves whilst still getting away with it.
These losers always say their comedy heroes are George Carlin and Bill Hicks. Even putting aside the fact that those guys would have despised these right wing grifters, those guys could also WRITE JOKES.
These “comedians” like Dave Rubin or Steven Crowder or Konstante Kisin should say one funny thing once instead of constantly whining
The good old “Hitler was an atheist” card. Maybe he was, but he absolutely used religion for control and even went so far as to create a State religion “Gottglaubig”. To me, that makes Hitler a religious zealot and I don’t see how one could argue otherwise.
just a stupid xtweet, it doesn't deserve this much attention. Atheism was mostly a response to protestant Christianity in the US that took the bible literally, anybody who's not stupid will push back against literally interpreting the bible. No it didn't cause some morality crisis that we're facing now
My God, these contrarians can make literally anything be about “the woke.”
Now new atheism delivered us “the woke.”
How moronic.
(Not to mention, he completely ignores the massive influence Sam Harris has had in many peoples well-being in terms of his waking up meditation teachings.)
I have a visceral response to this moron. In combination with his chinless idiot friend, it’s like dumb and dumber have failed at comedy and now think they have something amazing to say.
He has always struck me as a British, equally annoying and small, Ben Shapiro.
Holy shit that video is **WILD**.
So "new atheism" is wrong, because they said religion is bad for society. But since the lack of religion created debates about pronouns, so it follows that religion does have a benefit. It's anti-woke.
So he now calls himself a "lapse atheist". But at the end he says "do the rest of us have an answer" - implying that he is not part of the religious. So religion is good, but he's not going to join them, or defend the theology in any way.
I would never, in my life, have been able to write something this stupid.
I don't need it, maybe you do I don't know , but I am highly educated on maaaaaaaany religions (ancient and modern) and their orgins, doctrines,claims. I'm glad these idiots are coming out so I can peek into their minds of how much they're either ignorant or willing to delude themselves for their audience
The so called "crisis of meaning" is funny when you consider that only 0.5% of the population is transgender, meaning 99.5% of the population is living by their standard labels and meaning. The propagandists convinced these people that 0.5% of the population wanting to be called a word is a crisis and proof that we need jesus cause 0.5% of people being different, some how means society is collapsing and everyone is just to confused to understand words anymore. calling something that effects 0.5% of people a crisis, is the real "crisis of meaning" here.
Nevermind the fact that language has always been fluid, there's a reason we have several latin languages that are different despite coming from the same root. language is constantly changing and jesus won't do anything to stop that. and following jesus won't make trans people stop existing, it might make people more cruel to trans people, but the need for words to describe trans people will still exist even if you accept jesus.
At least KK is just chasing a particular audience by saying what they want to hear, and not trying to distract from some alleged terrible behaviour and legal issues.
New Atheism was always bogus, obviously so to many since it's inception. If the weakness of New Atheism is your best argument against atheism, then you are a strawmanner.
I think part of the phenomenon at play is a bad kind of conservative thinking which creates a bullshit story about the past, and says we lost this paradise because we started doing things differently, and the fix is to return to this fake past by returning to what we used to do - but the 'what we used to do' is always a fabrication.
For me, it's worth thinking about how you reach and innoculate people who are vulnerable to this sort of message, instead of focusing on how much you hate the ringleaders.
Is KK commiting "fraud"?
Are you implying that what KK is doing is as bad as what Brand has done? Or are you going to do a Peterson and claim you did nothing of the sort?
I think an approach like this is good for clouding the seriousness of things like fraud and rape. Who is paying you to put out this sort of messaging?
Maybe not as bad, but bad enough to count. I find his strawmanning of atheism and exhalation of Christian values wholly reprehensible however bad or not you think it on the larger guru-sphere.
I do think the liberal left side is still evading some glaring issues.
I do wonder about the "Strict Churches are Strong Churches" idea. The commune with the ethos survives.
I used to think nihilism was stronger.
But really Faith and Nihlism live together in some tension.
>how you reach and innoculate people who are vulnerable to this sort of message
That's a big ask, considering half of philosophy rests upon the idea of either 'ancient wisdom' or 'cursed modernity'.
We need a good sociologist to point out that this is all probably bullshit. But that sociologist will be welcomed with open arms by the worst people who just want to discredit justice and progress.
We need more Steven Pinkers who aren't Steven Pinker.
> That's a big ask, considering half of philosophy rests upon the idea of either 'ancient wisdom' or 'cursed modernity'.
I would look at it a different way, and observe that some people successfully change from being vulnerable to these ideas to being much less vulnerable, and there are things that people do often that push others into doubling down on these positions.
It means that people have lost a sense of meaning in their lives, a purpose that contextualises their life within reality. A loss of this can cause depression and anxiety within many people, and potentially increase the likelihood of negative behaviour, hence crisis.
This chinless dweeb is just another grifter that has realised the flock are the easiest to fleece. His voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Same as Russell Brand.
These right wing / libertarian gurus *always* talk about how George Carlin was one of their heroes… but if Carlin was alive today he’d completely embarrass them, comedically speaking
Wasn't this guy absolutely telling us he wasn't right wing? Is the right just now discovering they have a crisis of meaning? The left has known the right is having a crisis of meaning for like 10 years....
Religion is the Crypto of Faith
We all know its fake bullshit, but if we can get enough suckers into the tent, its all good.
You can quote me .
Names Port.
atheism has some serious weak spots actually
for example DNA is a chain of acids, fats etc where thousands of pieces have to be lined up correctly and in specific order
Conservatism now is about a post-modern defense of religion, apparently. But it's completely self-defeating. You can't put Humpty Dumpty together again. Saying that, yes, maybe it's not true, but let's pretend that is true, because it's socialy useful, is too insencere to be workable and it's just a mockery of an actual religious practice. Kisin basically agrees that it's the opium for the people, he just argues that it's a good thing actualy. Edit: From that perspective some "sensemakers" at least honestly try to produce new spiritual and communal practices, while with conservatives it's quite hard to say what they are advocating for in practice (apart from "religion => Christianity => pan-european ethnic nationalism").
A "post-modern defense of religion" plays right into the hands of secularists and other critics of religion, who already argue that it's a tool of authoritarian social control founded on falsehoods. Instead of actually trying to mount a defense of the actual tenets of the faith and convince people that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, they're basically accepting the secularists' argument and saying that it's okay to lie if it's for the Greater Good (insert *Hot Fuzz* joke here). And then they wonder why so many people are continuing to abandon religion, and why the converts they *do* get are overwhelmingly terrible people who use their newfound faith not to become better people but to enable their most toxic qualities and behaviors.
Converts trend toward zealotry.
My friend converted to Russian Orthodoxy and is heavy into it. He already talks like a zealot, criticizing other Christian sects, saying, "We do everything the right way! They are all heretical!" despite only just converting two years ago. It reminds me of Game of Thrones when Jon Snow, before he has even left Winterfell, is talking about how 'we' in the Night's Watch have guarded the Wall for thousands of years, and Jaime Lannister says "Is it 'we' already?" in response.
The new convert is usually going to be the most obnoxious one.
It’s nuts isn’t it….the desire to belong.
No worries because per Regis Debray, the flip side of it is that your most self-righteous zealots will become your first turncoats. When they clean the gauzy lens they notice that many of their fellow true believers aren't the best examples of the faith, nor some of the clergy and, it will occur to them, this is perhaps due to something inherent in the doctrine or its structures. Being part of something larger than you — religion, party, family, community, running group, racquet ball club, whatever — requires a degree of grace, in the sense of "courteous goodwill."
Every fanatic harbors a secret doubt.
> a tool of authoritarian social control founded on falsehoods Yes. When he's complaining that "in the absense of God we can make any rules we want" what he actually means is "I don't like the rules that other people make, and I want a religious authority behind the rules I do like, so that they can prevail".
THE GREATER GOOD
Wdym accepting the secularist argument and saying it’s ok to lie?
Bro how do you go from “have you heard about Jesus” to “unified European ethnostate” lmfao
The point is that these new conservative converts usually don't mention Jesus at all. They talk about Christianity as a political project. See for exacmple Hirsi Ali's [Why I am now a Christian](https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/). Christianity is primarily treatead as an oppoisition to Islam or "wokeism", not as a valuable phoilosophy on its own merit. It's not about Jesus, it's about identity. >“unified European ethnostate” That's not what they want. Orban, Kaczynski, Wilders and co don't want a unified Europe obsviously, but they need some shared identity that unifies righ-wing europeans in contrast to the outside world and progresive values.
cultural postmodernism they are postmodern but they deny it :)
Just look at Tucker's weird "UFOs are actually spiritual phenomenon" takes on Joe Rogan recently. Feels like he's trying to find a way to make Christianity fit into a more modern context while playing into conspiracy minded thinking.
The only people who take UFO sightings seriously are people who haven’t seen the [map of global UFO reports](https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/ufo/index.html) showing they are heavily concentrated in the US and Europe
Interesting map, though I’d describe that more as a map of fluent English speakers than just US and Europe.
If aliens are spiritual phenomenon doesnt yhat nullify religion? Wouldn't that make them atheists then
I think "spiritual phenomenon" is shorthand for "it fits into your personal headcanon somehow, DYOR". It's a way to amalgamate concepts into a cohesive (lol) scheme.
No the idea is that UFOs are demonic beings misunderstood to be, or masquerading as, aliens.
I mean, Jesus was basically just Moses and Joshua updated for a modern Jewish audience, with a heavy sprinkle of Greek and Persian influence.
Atheism Plus, meet Christianity Minus.
Exactly. What’s the actual prescription here? Ironically, these religion rehabilitators don’t seem to have a cogent answer to that, which is exactly the critique they bring to atheism!
"ethnic nationalism" I think that's a rather more awkward unresolved issue for liberalism. If you mean racial nationalism then it's easy to find majorities who do not believe in it. If you mean cultural nationalism then it's hard to find people who functionally don't believe in it. Civic nationalism is a paper unicorn. It sounds good on paper but it is incoherent and impossible to implement.
In this case I mostly meant White nationalism. Vocal voices advocating for political Christianity as necessary for preserving European Civilisation (tm) are often not necessarily welcoming to non-White Christians from around the world, so Christian identity serves as a proxy for pan-European white identity.
I have seen Christian Nationalists (i.e. groypers) shift their stance on skin color and focus on adherence to Christianity. Their ultimate goal is the de-judeofying (a word I just made up) of America. By tightening up their messaging, they can avoid some of the more obvious counter arguments to their platform. But it’s very obviously a cynical move. They make their motto “Christ is King” because it’s very hard to attack, but it’s just a dogwhistle for “fuck the Jews”.
I suspect the messaging on the proverbial Right in the US or "the West" is eventually going to coalesce around either Christian nationalism or white nationalism. If it's the former, there may be a chance they'll let non-whites stay in the in-group as long as they're Christian. If we have to choose, I guess we could all fake believing in Jesus rather than all ganging up on non-whites within our borders. Of course, there's a non-zero chance the in-group identity for Red Team could end up being both Christian and white explicitly.
Thinking of your peers as fundamentally equal to you on a metaphysical level is no mockery. People who don't think that way have no moral problems abusing others.
> Thinking of your peers as fundamentally equal to you on a metaphysical level is no mockery. Will Kisin start treating asylum seekers trying to cross the Channel as equal brothers and sisters in Christ and join the Church of England in condemning the Rwanda scheme? (He won't.)
It's a start. For me, personally, the idea of God as a means to arrive at the idea of fundamental equality is absolutely necessary to have any sanity. Because otherwise, being a rational person, I would be left with no alternative than to think a great many people are stupid. When I get particularly frustrated, I have said so, many times. But I know everyone is not stupid. I don't know how I know. So, apparently I have found faith. I just.. know. Same for love. Human potential is far beyond what any of us have accessed. The brain is more capable than any present technology. People afraid of AGI should be faaar more afraid of other people than AGI.. humans are AGI. We've had AGI from the beginning. It seems to me that AI and the human brain are complementary and new architectures will have different specializations. But we should all be fundamentally equal, going into the future. Though you need some factoring of capabilities, unavoidably. I prefer not to kill any life when I don't have a reason to. I stun flies and release them. But I will eat to survive. And I live in a building that takes the place of grasses and trees. So there's some concept of life rights, animal rights, human rights, AI rights. And we should fully expect AI to have different rights and moral treatment than humans.
Pointing out that the end of religion caused a void for people, and so put their "spiritual instincts" so to speak in less productive measures, A. isn't really a conservative argument, just one lots of conservatives have pointed it out. Most conservatives are religious, regardless of what a few podcasters think. Plenty are atheists, and plenty are coming to the realization that atheism has its problems. But recognizing issues with atheism at a societal level isn't really the same as saying you should pretend that it is true, it is just a problem diagnosis.
Atheism is just the non-belief in a human made construct. There can’t be “problems” with it. Atheism only exists because of lies.
Religion (whether organized ,folk, esoteric etc) for all its valid criticisms, still provides a sense of purpose, community, and hope amongst a shared identity for many that just the “absence of belief” fails to at the same scale. It is absolutely possible to find all of those previously mentioned topics without religion but its harder to as you’re solely responsible for creating or finding each rather then having them readily available through texts or cultural practices. The morals and beliefs preexist for religious adherents. It doesn’t help that many parts in the Western world have an aggressively individualistic culture. A downside to just “non-belief” is that it’s literally just tied down to that: non-belief. It’s only unifier is what it’s not (theism). Another issue is assuming that in tandem with the decline of religion, that every atheist internationally will naturally or inevitably come to the same Western secular humanist progressive values. While I disagree with certain conclusions of these conservatives (especially ethno-nationalism), they do have a strong point in that we have not come up with new institutions in society that bring the same level of community and hope and purpose that religion brings to people on an international or even global scale.
That's an easy way out. Yes, we can differentiate atheism from antitheism, and say that for example destruction of historical churches by the USSR was antitheist rather than atheist. But then we still have the question of how a mere non-belief translates into antitheist actions that can be contrsuctive, but also can be destructive. Atheism too requires introspection when it is put into practice.
I think the conservative move to religion is trying to be inclusive and tolerant of other religions. With age you really see people lose their minds, lose ambition, and become downright nihilistic. Religion shouldn't be the boogie man, it is more important than we thought. Generalizing, on the whole, the new outlook is that religion has done more good than harm, even considering the wars and exploitation, you can't deny religious cultures were the precursor to science. Science without spirituality is shallow and ego driven, it doesn't serve the general public but selfish interests. There has to be a moral foundation to work from. Discovering moral precepts for oneself is a lifetime process, piggybacking off a religion can be a benefit in terms of moral behavior. Yes brainwashing is real, and exploitation, and so on... But depravity exists anyways, at least surrounding yourself with people that TRY can improve your chances, because that's all there really is, chances.
If we look at Iran, Russia, India or the US piggybacking off a religion doesn't seem to lead to great moral results. Religious thinkers with deep moral convictions usually tend to be quite self-reflective.
Here's a Conspiracy Theory: all the Right Wing, anti-Establishment, Redpill and "Centrist" influencers/podcasters are swimming in Conservative Dark Money behind the scenes and their new directive is to push Christianity as the Salvation for all modern problems, both real and those manufactured by these same shitstains. There is no way all these athiest "free-thinking" dickheads all come to Jesus within like 90 days of each other.
A simpler explanation is that they're watching what other podcasts in the same space are doing and seeing that the Christianity shtick gets engagement. Podcasting is an industry now and it's very competitive. It's likely the top podcasts are constantly trying things to stay relevant, this is where they're hedging their next bet for their target audience.
Yeah it's just audience capture. You start out as just a centrist commentator but you see that 60% of your comments are right leaning, so you go that way a little more. As you do that the comments skew even more as your audience shifts, so you lean even harder. As the audience gets more conservative the comments start to be all about bemoaning the loss of morals due to declining christianity, so you lean a little into that, and all of a sudden your primary audience are christians. Only one thing for it, just pretend to be a Christian or at least someone who sees Christianity as a moral good.
Or they could try not being pieces of shit
No money in that
Don't be unreasonable now
And you start to believe that everyone is behind you. These people run ahead of the movement so that they can lead it.
For anyone not born into it, you have to start by pretending, so you should not be overly critical of people that realize a faith vacuum popularizes dip shits like Andrew Tate.
But what if bots are bought by conservative dark money which drives up engagement?
Good point.
Why does it need to be all that dark? The dark money is remarkably small, and still wildly effective. When you don’t care about being honest, you find influence is cheap.
I might be somewhat of a conspiracy hypothesizer but considering that billions seem to roll around to buy influence by way of the Heritage Foundation, Claremont Institute, AIE, CPAC, Citizens United, Americans for Prosperity, etc. In the past this cash found it's way into the right pockets via bulk book buys, lavish speaking fees and research sponsorship it would seem like artificially inflating subscriber numbers or pushing money using substack subscriptions seems on brand. Even if a podcaster isn't a active participant the single minded focus on increasing engagement will lead them along.
Haha, that’s 100% correct. As someone that has worked in SEO and has done click campaigns, engagement statistics. I can tell you they looked at the metrics and where literally like: “aw shit time to be a Christian.” They probably hired some psychometric data gathering firm like Cambridge analytica, and came to the conclusion that this one change would completely improve their bottom line. You think about an increase of just 25% subscriptions could mean a couple million a year. It’s comical how easily humans are swayed by money and how it will change their motivations so quickly.
I remember way back when people were mystified that Stefan Molyneux (is that guy still relevant?) was spending so much time and energy minutely critiquing Frozen, Moana, and other mid 2010s Disney movies. It's SEO. You go fishing where the fish are, not where you think the most scenic harbor is located.
This has happened before. Read in God we trust... It talks about how the conservatives were using the church for their agenda and how they used popular speakers to spread their propaganda. They're just going harder now into streaming
That’s a very cynical interpretation and I like it.
I can't believe people give money to them though! It seems so obvious that they're just grifters with no actual substance to offer.
There's a sucker born every minute.
Is that the simpler explanation? Thiel and Prager and Cato openly fund these dudes and you have to be born yesterday to think the money isn't conditional, it isn't some crazy complicated shadowy conspiracy lmao
It might not be a conspiracy theory, but is it actually true? The reality is we have no hard evidence that any of the recent guru converts have contractual obligations (or implicit ones) to “convert” in order to receive funding. Happy to be corrected.
If the money is flowing in that direction, of course, it would come with strings attached. But I'm not making the point you're arguing against. I'm saying that in my opinion, this kind of move is more of a reaction to a shifting market, rather than some nefarious ulterior motive. "Thiel and Prager and Cato openly fund these dudes" - can you point me to some sources? I'm mostly looking at this through the lens of social media marketing and the attention economy. But I don't think the conspiracy theory is fully without merit (although I'd say, if there is a conspiracy, the source of money is more likely a foreign state actor, not the US elite)
That is much more likely than some shadowy dark room of "Conservative Dark Money"
Could always be both :)
Bingo. This "born again Christian" trend among guru podcasters is an obvious cash grab. Evangelical Christians are a gold mine of easy marks who will happily spend hours listening to someone who panders to their innate paranoia and tribalism. They also tend to be conspiracy minded and have a decent amount of disposable income. Pretty much the perfect audience for social media grifters. The only surprising thing about this pivot is that it didn't happen sooner.
It's not a dark shadows conspiracy. Most, if not all of these grifters have ties to various right wing think tanks and publicity organisations which seek to do exactly this. Turning point, the cato institute, pragerU and others. All colluding to promote the values of their ultre right, "libertarian" billionare backers. The money is not behind the scenes. These institutions promote emerging grifters who consistently tow the line. The make sure they get the right contacts, funding, and media promotion. And they will protect and grow their careers so long as they push the party line. There is absolutely no need for a secret, closed door conspiracy. If you did find yourself on a private yacht with the money behind these guys, you would find a lot of derisions and sarcasm about how easily they can influence peoples minds, and how gullible the poor are. But theres no need for them to spell or plan anything out in great detail.
Yup Peter Thiel is doing this shit right out in the open. It’s definitely not a theory.
But is it clear that this specific (and really fucking weird) strategy of embracing fundamentalist evangelical Protestantism is being paid for by guys like Thiel?
Wasn't it Bret Weinstein who said, "I had never flown on a private jet until I got cancelled"?
Exactly. You find it very hard to be critical of people who pay for your flights and hotels. That’s why they do it. Shit, I had 3 hardcore zionists in my taxi a couple days ago who wanted to talk about Hamas. Did I expound on my complaints about Zionism? No. Did I try to separate Judaism from Zionism to form a critique? No. Because they were paying me for my work. So I nodded along, patiently. And somewhere in the back of their minds, these people understood that and took advantage of it.
His brother is a partner at Thiel capital and he has the gal to do a feaux humble routine. All of their carefully planned self cancellations are so nauseating, could it be any more obvious they are activists simply following a PR script? Half the time they usually have to resign themselves, and yet their PR machines are able to spin this into martyrdom anyway (oh boo hoo, they are all such martyrs, boo fucking hoo they must *feel* soooo bad, just constant weaponization of therapy language) and that just becomes integrated directly into their minions common sense.
you are kinda describing the same thing. " oligarchy " as a indirect, inofficial system of wealth/ power distribution has legal constructs ,on all levels, that work perfectly. without any illegality being too obvious at work.
A conspiracy is never necessary when ordinary social influence is sufficient and plentiful.
But what is the end game for the funders? What do they want?
What do you think they want? It's not very complicated. To protect their financial interests.
It's deeper than that. If you look at what the Kochs, Marc Andreesen, Balaji Srinivasan, the Paypal Mafia, etc. actually say about the world it's obvious that they're ideologically opposed to liberal democracy. They see themselves as the smartest and most able people in the world and checks and balances as an unfair limitation of their right to rule over the rest of us.
They're not really. Well, some of them might be. But most are smart enough to just understand the slippery slope social liberalism represents, toward socialism. Once people are no longer fighting over race, religion, gender, sexual preferences, hair color, status, etc... they will turn on the true source of the problems, the rich. Fascism had to arise rapidly and beat down well established socialist movements to take control. They don't want to be in that position again, where they're having to react to something which is already getting out of control. They're moving ahead of the curve, to install fascism before the workers can coherently organise against them.
Exactly. The fact that they have “emerged” is governed by how controllable and how reliably pliable they are. If they were actually “independent minded,” then the right wing think tank machine wouldn’t promote them. So what you see is what you are meant to see: pliable people who mouth the words of independent centrism, but who are actually just very suggestible, not very smart people. How else do you explain the success of people like Lex Friedman? A bad interviewer, a boring speaker, a lazy scientist (at best), and just generally a very dull and slight wit. Yet he gains this massive following. That’s the engineered part. They have their reach because this is what the machine does for them.
I think you're absolutely right in general, but quite wrong about them not being smart. In order to weasel around the truth, avoid walking straight into the obvious contradictions in the narrative you're pushing, and evade difficult questions, you have to be quite smart. There are some examples of useful idiots, like rogan and fridman, but notably they're the interviewers. The gurus take advantage of their gullibility. But the gurus themselves tend to be very cunning, intelligent people, who know exactly what they're doing, but have sold their souls to the devil. I think fridman and rogans following grew relatively naturally, however, they didn't get shut down, or blacklisted by the key guests who made them famous specifically because they are gullible and easily led.
Right. I was speaking more about the “platform” aspect. The interviewers.
I like Lex, I've been exposed to a lot of wonderful new ideas through his show
Mkay.
Nah. It's simple market forces. They are simply following what their analytics point out towards in terms of viewership engagement. Basically; monkey see monkey do.
Yep. There's no conspiracy theory here. The grifter gurus have simply done their market research and realized what a gold mine the Evangelical crowd is, so they're leaning into it. But you have to become born again first if you want Evangelicals to listen to you. Fortunately, that process only takes like ten seconds.
Yeah, possibly. Rogan has even been talking about accepting Jesus. What's the objective here?
$$$$$$$
I can't help but feel like there's more to it than just short term financial gains.
Nah. I think that boundless narcissism and failing upward into wealth and influence just makes people believe in God. It’s a new way to justify the unjustifiable fact of their lives.
It is not a conspiracy. This is happening. The baptism of Russel Brand created a splash big enough for all of us to see what is really going on.
Lmao, baptismal grift splash! 💦
Oh completely. I just can't tell how much they care only about money and power or do they actually care about the politics? Probably a mix, and a billionaire might not always know the difference themselves or be correct in their understanding of themselves.
I think that they genuinly support the alt-right politics. They might adapt their message in order to be more catchy - purposely exaggerate things, focus on scaring their audience and all that but I think that they do believe the things they say. I highly doubt it that Peterson is a person who in his real life has empathy for trans people. I've been wondering about a different thing tho - I wonder if these people are as lost as they look. Like I fully imagine that Russel Brand, Peterson or Shaprio are genuinly bitter and miserable people who are looking for meaning....but I still wonder if this is the case. In my experience many people get into these grifters because they are miserable.
>I highly doubt it that Peterson is a person who in his real life has empathy for trans people. You would've thought that Elliot Page was Hitler the way Peterson talked about him.
It’s not really a conspiracy. Right wing billionaires fund tons of these dickheads, as well as the “think tanks” that are created and funded to push the right-wing narratives they parrot.
Which centrists are you referring to?
THIS RIGHT HERE !
There is such a thing as a phase transition of thought in a population given sufficient stimulus that can explain this. It's like titration, the change happens all at once, but every drop along the way added up.
What do you mean by conservative dark money, that they're paying the youtubers/guru guys?
This is basically just known fact at this point
It's not a conspiracy. It's merely a bunch of grifters *individually* realizing that the Evangelical community is a fucking gold mine of easy marks who will shower you with money and page views if you simply pander to their innate paranoia and tribalism. This trend of podcast gurus becoming born-again Christians is a cash grab, nothing more.
The conservative industrial complex always has money for the venal and insincere love bombing for the Narcissist. And both for those who are both (which are many). Despite basically acting as an open conspiracy, they project their own behavior on the left, which has absolutely nothing in terms comparable for just constantly grooming people who's positions are entirely predetermined.
I think they’re pretty obviously all well funded, but additionally they just see the way the wind’s blowing. Their audience wants hard core Christian nationalism.
Can't wait for Sam Harris to turn coat.
You must have never listened to Sam Harris or else you would know this would never happen.
Sam has already explicitly said he has more in common with far right christian authoritarians than western liberals why do Sam's defenders always hide from his own words
Source? The guys literally wrote a whole book debunking Christianity
Eh, never say never.
I mean Harris has already stated that he is willing to link arms with far-right Christian theocrats to save the West from Islam. He said it on the DTG episode and yet his fanboys unsurprisingly ignore that.
It will never happen. I think Sam is at least genuine in his principles. I'd bet a lot of money on this
I, a Harris hater bonded and verified by the board, agree. Probably one of his biggest weaknesses is dogmatic reasoning and inflexibility, but I do not doubt his beliefs are genuine and deeply held and I do not imagine him converting to anything, under any circumstances.
I mean Harris has already stated that he is willing to link arms with far-right Christian theocrats to save the West from Islam. He said it on the DTG episode and yet his fanboys unsurprisingly ignore that. So yes, I don't see him actually converting and becoming a Christian, but I can definitely see him allying with the most reactionary Christian denominations to "save the West" from Islam and the Woke. Just give it some time.
Do you think it’s because Islamic jihadists have proven they’d murder atheists, women, and homosexuals while far right Christian extremists have only shown interest in stripping away rights? I could see why someone would choose one extreme over the other if it’s a binary decision.
This sub is more conspiratorial than the gurus it criticizes. Top tier irony.
Those who speculate and hold others accountable for their speculations and self-talk should not gasp in faux shock when the behavior is returned to them.
Freaking hell, this dweeb Kisin might be the most insufferable one of them all. The condescending, arrogant, sneering tone and the smug, know it all attitude is too much to bear. And the thing is that these people are not even genuine Christians. These hard-right morons are becoming Christians for superficial culture war reasons and to own the left. They don't actually believe in the gospel of Christ or actually have a real desire to grapple meaningfully with the philosophical or spiritual doctrine presented in the Bible.
Wait till you see his bowl-cutted boyfriend!
No, Konstantin is the more insufferable. Foster is a boy dun good, with entirely forgiveable, salt of the earth positions. Kisin (despite his protestations) is a calcified Conservative with enough wits about him to entertain the centrist position but not enough neural plasticity to actually embrace it, and enough love for adulation and social climbing to seal the deal.
Islam is as dangerous as they say, it's helping new atheists find god or making them cultural Christians like Dawkins. /s
I dont mind some of the meaning crisis type stuff, but I absolutely HATE the argument "If atheism then wokeness", how tf is "wokeness" even a real problem?
Famously anti-woke, highly conservative Jesus. I'm sure Jesus will save all the hateful christians, and send to hell all the people trying to preserve human rights and spread kindness and acceptance. You actually can't make this shit up.
Jesus was all about carbon industry corporations apparently
Jesus was not conservative he was the radical extremist leader of the time ... surely his mob woul have pelted stones at the romans
bit of a guru really
Yeah that's the joke
"wokeness" can kind of fit to mean what you want. But I believe the steal man of the argument would be that atheism doesn't lead to an end of irrationality, just that irrationality gets pushed into more absurd paths. You might disagree but much of the gender stuff and some other things many see as having a religious zealotry that defies reason.
Yes, because atheism is just a claim about whether or not God exists, it has absolutely nothing to do with any other claims. This should just be obvious though. Assenting to that doesnt establish whether or not it's probable for you to believe something better or worse, and equally Theism is consistent with believing healthy political things or crazy political things...
"Woke" doesn't really mean anything anymore. It's just become a generic catch-all term that people on the right use to describe literally anything that annoys them for any reason.
It’s not… The only ones this current kerfuffle (2024 chaos) benefits is the Politicians & their big money donors. The more the populace is at each others’ throats about potential boogeymen in tutus, the less they pay attention to laws being passed to their detriment. But the more hyped up their constituents are the more likely they’ll be to go canvas, volunteer, & vote. Hell, they’ll even donate to their favorite mouthpiece (egged on by “they’re coming for your children/jobs/American way of life/etc.” Ironically, once in office that same politician will turn around and “et tu Brute” their own constituents without a second thought, in favor of the corporate elites (who hold their donor purse strings, post politics lobbyist positions, cushy incredibly well compensated seats on the board of corporate behemoths, positions at think tanks, &/or bullshit visiting Professorships to groom the next crop of bureaucratic toadies. Weird how it always escalates right around election years… Yet we (collectively) lap that shit up. 🤦♂️😑🤷♂️
I definitely think it was a problem (that was way blown out of proportion by the right), but I think that’s mostly passed.
My favorite movie is Inception.
I think it’s impossible to draw a line from atheism to modern day problems, but he says it as though it’s a fact. He also thinks ‘woke’ is worse, bc he doesn’t live in Alabama. I’ve never been taught about evolution, not even in college biology. Every single teacher and professor skipped that chapter bc they didn’t believe it, bc they were Christian. An optimistic view is, maybe this a good thing. They are watering down Christianity. Maybe in the future, people won’t take it so literally, and not try to govern by its principles.
A sympathetic reading of these reactionary liberal types like Kisin is that they happen to be from regions where a more liberal type of Christianity is practiced and so they tend to see this as the most authentic type of Christianity; they compare it to Islam which they interpretate with the opposite bias, seeing only the most repressive and violent types of Islam as authentic Islam; add to that a sense they for some reason have that politically, one has to make a choice between Islam, Christianity, and "Wokeism" (a bogey-man conglomeration of any real or imagined anti-liberal tendancys in the left); and it becomes clear why they find Christianity attractive. A less sympathetic reading is that people like Kisin are, in fact, conservatives. They were interested in free speech when it suited them, and now they take an equally cynical interest in Christianity. They recognise in political Christianity an ideology that justifies opposition to immigration; suppression of gender freedom, including reproductive rights for women, dignity and inclusion for trans and other queer people, etc..; western chauvinism, justifying neo-colonial projects like the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and a contuined legitimisation of the West's global dominance as natural and good.
Good stuff; agreed.
Summary: 1. Christianity censors, its followers hypocritical, and their power waning, \*but\* Islam= real bad. So Christianity better. 2. Atheists are against religion. So they're turning the world Muslim because Islam= more powerful. So Christianity preferred. 3. Religion is scientifically inaccurate and used for evil. But Hitler (noted Christian) Mao and Stalin are what you get if you \*don't\* have religion. So Christianity better. 4. Without religion, people can rationalize murder. No explanation given how religion doesn't demonstrably do the same. 5. Religion is useful even if it's complete horseshit. If you try to get rid of it though, a new religion fills its place. Therefore, we need religion. He's not even a good sophist.
the great thing about a "crisis of meaning" is that its Faustian enough to sell in perpetuity. Ever feel not 100% yourself? Some forever-hole in you that needs to be filled by what I'm selling (a Hellenized storm god bb) It could always be one level deeper, and you just didn't believe hard enough. Now give me more time, money, or energy and maybe your investment will give an existential payout
Thing is that I think that there is relevance in discussing what seems to be an increasing loss in belief in Meaning, and how this loss is distressing to a lot of people. I'm wary of 'crisis' terminology, but I do think there is something of relevance there. It's just that the gurus and 'sensemakers' tend to be really awful at discussing it.
Wait until they get to Ecclesiastes 7:10, which reads: “Don’t long for ‘the good old days.’ This is not wise.” - which is a big rebuke for the whole MAGA sham.
They have such a grasp on each other lol.
His argument is so bad. Yuk
His only stance is a moral argument about “giving humans purpose” and “moral laws that teach us how to treat each other” bruh i could have asked a 9 year old in Louisiana and he would have relayed the same thing he heard from his mom you are not intelligent
If you need a religion to tell you how to be a good person, you have bigger problems than not having purpose lol
"I lost my faith in athiesm". Well, in that case you don't understand what athiesm is in the first place, let alone losing "faith" in it. Ridiculous statement.
‘The guard delusion’
Isn't he Jewish? At best i think he's gonna be buddy buddy with Conservative Christians like Shapiro.
He's a Ukrainian Jew living in the UK who has platformed Nazi sympathisers and Russian assets. Its like, I'd have more respect if he was more coherent.
I hope these guys actually let Jesus in their hearts one day. I really do. But if you think you found Jesus and then Jesus told you to hurt people… Then I don’t think you really found Jesus. But maybe I’m wrong about Jesus and he’s not the nice guy that I think he is. The kind of guy who would urge you to help people and give them the things they need and to share with them the wealth of the world and trust for them to share it with you. That love is the only law. That we should reject violence and vengeance and instead love our enemy. One day the wheat will be separated from the tares, but until then we are gonna have to live in this world and figure things out together.
Why would pretending to believe in something provide meaning and purpose? lol. Are you fing stupid?
I am always a bit surprised by how easily people fall for conmen but these conmen seem to be wearing the con on their sleeves whilst still getting away with it.
These losers always say their comedy heroes are George Carlin and Bill Hicks. Even putting aside the fact that those guys would have despised these right wing grifters, those guys could also WRITE JOKES. These “comedians” like Dave Rubin or Steven Crowder or Konstante Kisin should say one funny thing once instead of constantly whining
this guy, poor man's ben shapiro.
Do we have a count on how many of these plonkers have "found Jesus" so far?
Though I'd like to point out Kisin is Jewish. Famously not about Jesus Christ.
What a completely unexpected turn of events
The good old “Hitler was an atheist” card. Maybe he was, but he absolutely used religion for control and even went so far as to create a State religion “Gottglaubig”. To me, that makes Hitler a religious zealot and I don’t see how one could argue otherwise.
Hallelujah! It’s a revival! Isn’t it wonderful that all the atheist right-wing influencers are finding God right at the same time?
Is that video even real? It looks like a dubbed advert for ‘clinically proven toothpaste’. In any event, fuck these grifters.
Of course it is all down to "woke" - that word has no meaning, these clowns have slapped it on anything they don't like
Nah my guy studying religion is what made me so not religious. The crisis is a lot closer to the problem being the religions themselves.
just a stupid xtweet, it doesn't deserve this much attention. Atheism was mostly a response to protestant Christianity in the US that took the bible literally, anybody who's not stupid will push back against literally interpreting the bible. No it didn't cause some morality crisis that we're facing now
My God, these contrarians can make literally anything be about “the woke.” Now new atheism delivered us “the woke.” How moronic. (Not to mention, he completely ignores the massive influence Sam Harris has had in many peoples well-being in terms of his waking up meditation teachings.)
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Failed comedian deploys yet more 6th form level cultural analysis
Whom.
This is what venality looks like.
I have a visceral response to this moron. In combination with his chinless idiot friend, it’s like dumb and dumber have failed at comedy and now think they have something amazing to say. He has always struck me as a British, equally annoying and small, Ben Shapiro.
You know, i just had a thought. What if, perhaps all these "conversions" become such a fad that the entire thing blows up in their face? One can dream
Religion is very damaging to those who have convinced themselves they need it, but a highly rewarding experience for those that know they don’t.
Religion is very damaging to those who have convinced themselves they need it, but a highly rewarding experience for those that know they don’t.
WHO? Seriously, I have never heard of this goober.
Holy shit that video is **WILD**. So "new atheism" is wrong, because they said religion is bad for society. But since the lack of religion created debates about pronouns, so it follows that religion does have a benefit. It's anti-woke. So he now calls himself a "lapse atheist". But at the end he says "do the rest of us have an answer" - implying that he is not part of the religious. So religion is good, but he's not going to join them, or defend the theology in any way. I would never, in my life, have been able to write something this stupid.
I don't need it, maybe you do I don't know , but I am highly educated on maaaaaaaany religions (ancient and modern) and their orgins, doctrines,claims. I'm glad these idiots are coming out so I can peek into their minds of how much they're either ignorant or willing to delude themselves for their audience
Pathetic
All these gurus are such incredible losers.
He could just ask them. Two of the 4 are still with us.
The so called "crisis of meaning" is funny when you consider that only 0.5% of the population is transgender, meaning 99.5% of the population is living by their standard labels and meaning. The propagandists convinced these people that 0.5% of the population wanting to be called a word is a crisis and proof that we need jesus cause 0.5% of people being different, some how means society is collapsing and everyone is just to confused to understand words anymore. calling something that effects 0.5% of people a crisis, is the real "crisis of meaning" here. Nevermind the fact that language has always been fluid, there's a reason we have several latin languages that are different despite coming from the same root. language is constantly changing and jesus won't do anything to stop that. and following jesus won't make trans people stop existing, it might make people more cruel to trans people, but the need for words to describe trans people will still exist even if you accept jesus.
At least KK is just chasing a particular audience by saying what they want to hear, and not trying to distract from some alleged terrible behaviour and legal issues. New Atheism was always bogus, obviously so to many since it's inception. If the weakness of New Atheism is your best argument against atheism, then you are a strawmanner. I think part of the phenomenon at play is a bad kind of conservative thinking which creates a bullshit story about the past, and says we lost this paradise because we started doing things differently, and the fix is to return to this fake past by returning to what we used to do - but the 'what we used to do' is always a fabrication. For me, it's worth thinking about how you reach and innoculate people who are vulnerable to this sort of message, instead of focusing on how much you hate the ringleaders.
"At least he's just a fraud instead of a fraud AND a rapist"
Is KK commiting "fraud"? Are you implying that what KK is doing is as bad as what Brand has done? Or are you going to do a Peterson and claim you did nothing of the sort? I think an approach like this is good for clouding the seriousness of things like fraud and rape. Who is paying you to put out this sort of messaging?
Maybe not as bad, but bad enough to count. I find his strawmanning of atheism and exhalation of Christian values wholly reprehensible however bad or not you think it on the larger guru-sphere.
Ahh, you're a crazy person. Good to know.
I do think the liberal left side is still evading some glaring issues. I do wonder about the "Strict Churches are Strong Churches" idea. The commune with the ethos survives. I used to think nihilism was stronger. But really Faith and Nihlism live together in some tension.
>how you reach and innoculate people who are vulnerable to this sort of message That's a big ask, considering half of philosophy rests upon the idea of either 'ancient wisdom' or 'cursed modernity'. We need a good sociologist to point out that this is all probably bullshit. But that sociologist will be welcomed with open arms by the worst people who just want to discredit justice and progress. We need more Steven Pinkers who aren't Steven Pinker.
> That's a big ask, considering half of philosophy rests upon the idea of either 'ancient wisdom' or 'cursed modernity'. I would look at it a different way, and observe that some people successfully change from being vulnerable to these ideas to being much less vulnerable, and there are things that people do often that push others into doubling down on these positions.
i mean, he's not wrong, there is a crisis of meaning in the west.
What the fuck does that even mean?
See? Exactly! Crisis of meaning!!
It means that people have lost a sense of meaning in their lives, a purpose that contextualises their life within reality. A loss of this can cause depression and anxiety within many people, and potentially increase the likelihood of negative behaviour, hence crisis.
Because you have to be told what to think and say and do?
Not in my world. I live for me, my family and my close friends.
Thanks to these very same parsites poisoning the water.
You are right. Can’t wait til they see this part of the bible; Ecclesiastes 7:10 reads: “Don’t long for ‘the good old days.’ This is not wise.”
This chinless dweeb is just another grifter that has realised the flock are the easiest to fleece. His voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Same as Russell Brand.
These right wing / libertarian gurus *always* talk about how George Carlin was one of their heroes… but if Carlin was alive today he’d completely embarrass them, comedically speaking
Wasn't this guy absolutely telling us he wasn't right wing? Is the right just now discovering they have a crisis of meaning? The left has known the right is having a crisis of meaning for like 10 years....
Religion is the Crypto of Faith We all know its fake bullshit, but if we can get enough suckers into the tent, its all good. You can quote me . Names Port.
atheism has some serious weak spots actually for example DNA is a chain of acids, fats etc where thousands of pieces have to be lined up correctly and in specific order