Correction to Mary Eberstadt's bio at 0:15 Mary Eberstadt holds the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center, and is a senior research fellow with the Faith and Reason Institute.

@cosmicwave1458

2 жыл бұрын

No surprises here, thanks.

I'm on the left and I mean deeply so and Mary Eberstadt is one of my favorite thinkers on the right. Great conversation, Michael!

She does make a number of good points. In Europe where Christianity is on the ropes, Islamists are patiently waiting to take over and that is very scary.

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

I find it humorous that in South Korea and Japan, they still won't let Islam in.

it is so rare to hear two people of obviously different viewpoints have a reasonable, respectful, polite conversation about the sensitive topics on which there views diverge. I wish we had more tolerance in general these days. Thank you to both of you.

This is a really good show Michael Shermer, keep up the good work, your show is one of the best out there.

@simonrae3048

2 жыл бұрын

absolutely

And all was fantastic before 1963?

@yurik1068

2 жыл бұрын

You said A lot in that short sentence. Bravo!!! I agree with you 100%.

@drts6955

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! Now people don't believe in truth and facts like they did when they believed that Jesus was the son of God!! And of course, we all know how much more morally sophisticated in 1963. They may have believed in Jim Crow, but at least they believed in something, unlike people these days who only believe in making the world a better place :(

@suntzu7727

2 жыл бұрын

Nobody said that, bozo. That's like being in 1940, criticizing Nazis and someone come up and says "all was fantastic before 1933?"

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

I loved joking about women stuck becoming housewives, then washing down barbiturates with alcohol to tolerate it.

As noted, African-Americans are among one of the more religious groups in society in spite of the traditional family structure this lady hankers for. Asian-Americans are among the least religious, yet maintain two-parent homes better than most.

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

Som argue that certain people are more r or K select, and no amount of religion can make one be the other.

@dashrirprock

8 ай бұрын

@@skylinefever That sounds like a Rushton-influenced answer. I think a big part of the equation for African-Americans is that many males are imprisoned, which means the supply of marriageable men is low. Women in general prefer to date intra-racially, but especially Black women. The men who are in play have more bargaining power, and as men (rather than merely being Black), they prefer sex to commitment. In the case of Asians, there's an oversupply of men relative to women. Asian women are almost equally interested in White men, which gives them relatively more bargaining power for long-term relationships.

@gab1172

2 ай бұрын

And yet the most rich Asian societies like Japan and North Korea, and even China are going extinct because of not reaching Replacement. So smart!

Enjoyable. I think Mr, Shermer has a visible stylistic "tell", when he is about to ask a hardball question he seems to blush.

Michael and I have the same mind. I like her. I don't agree with the God notion but I very much agree with importance of the extended family. I was honoured to meet my Great Grandmother. I was very young. How wonderful it could have been if we all lived in the same home and supported each other. Instead, I'm alone.

@pasokhjoo1158

2 жыл бұрын

I am a grandfather and have, until very recently, been blessed with being born, brought up, and live in a large extended family. If anybody deny the enormous problems of that, they'd be either fooling you or worse are fooling themselves; but the benefits FAR outweigh any such problems.

@jameswest7601

2 жыл бұрын

I believe in God because I don't agree with the time-space-universe-from-nothing notion.

This was such an awesome conversation to listen to. I was reading the comments in the beginning and assumed that it was going to be a lot my argumentative than it was. I honestly think that these two agreed more than they disagreed on most things; obviously with an array of nuances. But still great convo. And also I think the point about African Americans being very religious yet having high rates of out of wedlock birth is missing some serious context. The generation of African Americans that waited until marriage to have children passed a long time ago. Today AA are way more culturally religious than actually religious. In other words, we all go to church on Easter Sunday but that doesn’t me we’re going to abstain from sex until marriage. Again; great convo.

The main reason for a loss of God or religion in peoples lives is Science!... The place where God persists in the miraculous is ever decreasing due to our growth in knowledge.

@albionicamerican8806

2 жыл бұрын

No, the social science research into the decline of religious belief suggests that it is happening because of better living conditions which reduce existential anxiety.

@hollywooda111

2 жыл бұрын

@Humanity Is Doomed to Extinction So how do you explain all the God fearing, Jesus lovin multimillionaire sports stars? I think on a personal level maybe stability and comfort can lead to less need for prayers and a God. But societal big shifts come from that God of the gaps becoming less and less. But strangely even with manmade religion on the decline a personal and spiritual God seems to be more on the rise, people believing in a higher power that doesnt come with all the fairytales.

@albionicamerican8806

2 жыл бұрын

@@hollywooda111 Many sports stars come from impoverished, high time preference families, and they clearly don't know how to manage their windfalls of millions of dollars, considering how many of these guys wind up declaring bankruptcy after the ends of their sports careers. Their financial precarity still leaves them feeling existentially vulnerable, and therefore religious.

@jameswest7601

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you capitalized Science like a new religion. That is the popular belief system that gets you social benefits in 2021 and we have our own miracles: Everything came from nothing. And prophecy: evidence of transcendent intelligence will someday be explained by future scientists so just ignore your lying eyes until then. Atheism says it, we believe it, and that settles it. We're so rational.

@hollywooda111

2 жыл бұрын

@@jameswest7601 when I said "our growth" I should I said "some of our".

It’s amazing that intelligent people still believe in the Christian god. I’ve been around them all my life.

@fieldandstream9362

2 жыл бұрын

Actually it is intelligent because people in Christianity are not like a cult, you're not persecuted for leaving, and it's a personal, direct relationship with each individual. Anyone who knows Christianity knows it's allegorical and Jesus even supposedly stated he speaks in parables. It's a script to help people who need a framework to redirect their life in better ways. I will say it's incredibly mysogynistic and perhaps could use a third testament.

@drts6955

2 жыл бұрын

@@fieldandstream9362 Except no. By your definition, anyone who knows Christianity would not include most Christians in all but the most secular societies. I grew up in a relatively secular Christian background and, yes, it's quite like what you said but it's not like that everywhere and the only reason it ever is more chill is not by virtue of Christians but by the unwillingness of people and the state to put up with a totalitarian cult of Christianity. I think religion has great value to people and I am not "against" it. However yours is a very sanitised and unrealistic view of the religion

@stud6414

2 жыл бұрын

@@drts6955 what is your view of Islam?

@drts6955

2 жыл бұрын

@@stud6414 Sort of basically what Christianity used to be like, except more beards. Fortunately most Christian societies do not take Christianity as seriously as Muslims take Islam

@fieldandstream9362

2 жыл бұрын

@@drts6955 I appreciate your view and it does make sense.

Shermer: "Our state is secular! Everyone equal under the law! Endowed by our Creato..." OH.

@cosmicsquid

Жыл бұрын

Yes, also there is still the phrase in "God We Trust' plastered all over the USA and on its currency.

To Mary Eberstadt: This world is indeed in need more love, but perhaps unwanted pregnacies could also be reduced, if the childcare was't just up to the biological parents, but that others -- trusted family members, friends, neighbours, elderly people and others living in the area, and so forth -- played a more active role. This could simultaneously provide more versatile upbringing and (perhaps) expose/prevent abuse against children.

@ameliaclayshulte7784

2 жыл бұрын

Wasn't that exactly her point?

@justincase4937

2 жыл бұрын

@@ameliaclayshulte7784 Perhaps I wasn't so carefully listening. My impression was that she argued that the erosion of the traditional marriage and family causes many abortions, and I completely agree. My suggestion is that in lack of a core family, the local community could ease the burden of the mother (and/or father), thus diminishing the mother's motivation for abortion and as a side effect enrich the life of the child.

@ameliaclayshulte7784

2 жыл бұрын

@@justincase4937 Yeah, that was exactly her point. The fact that we no longer live in extended familial networks leaves people vulnerable and less capable of raising children. That was about the only enlightened thing she said. The rest of it was combination of cluelessness, magical thinking, and logical contradictions. I do not understand how anyone can perceive of this woman as a scholar.

@justincase4937

2 жыл бұрын

@@ameliaclayshulte7784 A problem also is, who should PAY for intitiatives to ease the burden of single women, who get pregant. Some do have the means, but then they probably also have a carreer, no time for kids, and money doesn't matter much in this context. But for poor women, money make a huge difference. Guess that only a small minority in USA would accept to support poor women with babies via taxes (we actually do here in the Nordic counties).

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

@@justincase4937 Everybody already is stuck with the burden of welfare rats that spawn kids to avoid getting a job. Nobody should have kids just to have a bribe.

Shermer tossed soft balls for the most part and she squirreled herself out of any really direct answering of his counterfactuals. But what really got me was the sanctimonious nature of so much of her positions. She asks, "Are we better off in a country where a majority of people believe that we are all children of god without regard to race, ethnicity etc.... or are we better off in a world where most people believe that they are members of warring tribes...?" Damn it! Wouldn't it be better if we all understood that we ALL are descended from common ancestors? Evolution is enough to break through delusive notions of race etc.

With all due respect to Ms. Eberstadt, it seems she used the phrases "I think" or "I believe" an awful lot without saying something more like "studies show" or "data suggests". It seems she was not relying on evidence for a lot of her assertations.

@viviennedunbar3374

2 жыл бұрын

You may want to read her books where she lays out a lot of evidence for her theories from secular social science.

@kingtermite1

2 жыл бұрын

@@viviennedunbar3374 fair point

The idea of the equality of all men and women is also contained in the beginning of the Old Testament. That human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Genesis 1:26, 27.

Great conversation!

Watched a few interviews before. This one earned a Sub.

Every time he says “rise of the nones,” I hear “rise of the nuns.”

@johnmarshall9575

2 жыл бұрын

That's the Joke.

Thank you Michael and Mary for this rather enlightening and the respectful exchange of ideas.The great thinker of his generation Shaw, predicted that the wars of the future would be the battle of ideas....and the victims will be the souls of the children. I tend to agree with the Catholic understanding of anthropology that Mary expounded here.But I respect Michael's airing of the Darwinian survival of the fittest mindset.I did notice that whenever Michael gave out the "devils advocate" alternative airing on say abortion etc. he did tend to stutter, whereas he was fluid generally on the non moral issues. Anyway I am biased, as I thought that the country that my dad came from,namely Poland , actually has shown that strong Catholic beliefs was the backbone of The Solidarity movement, that overthrew the totalitarian humanistic yoke of the Russian social experiment.(the religious belief in a world without God!) Thank you very much Michael for putting this up on KZread.

Ask Mary Eberstadt what evidence does she have of her God or Gods?

@allablr5765

2 жыл бұрын

And what evidence you have that God doesn't exist? Enlighten us.

@cosmicwave1458

2 жыл бұрын

@@allablr5765 Who is us? Not claiming there is or isn't. The burden of proof is on those who make claims of God or Gods. Claims and beliefs are not evidence. Please "enlighten" what is proof or evidence of your God or Gods assuming you believe in one or many. Thanks

@jameswest7601

2 жыл бұрын

Our space-time-energy-matter-universe which started with a supernatural big bang had to be caused by something. That something has to be super intelligent, super powerful, and transcendent to our material universe. That's God.

@cosmicwave1458

2 жыл бұрын

@@jameswest7601 "supernatural big bang" Wow, evidence? Does you super intelligent, super powerful God do anything? What about the horrific suffering and deaths of the innocent? The free will BS is a contrived excuse for the inexcusable, please don't go there either.

@jameswest7601

2 жыл бұрын

@@cosmicwave1458 “supernatural” is literal in this case. The singularly at time zero is beyond all laws of physics that we think were operating in our universe one second later. A Big Bang that creates a universe like ours is more beyond our observations than people rising from the dead. That’s evidence of a powerful intelligent transcendent first cause God. Your assessment of God’s morality does not inform the question of His existence.

Eberstadt has some valid points, especially about the sexual revolution having unintended side effects (atomization). For some reason, she didn't answer any of Shermer's questions, she would just pivot and start talking about something she rehearsed exactly like a politician. It was disturbing to see this behavior, gave me vibes that she is a closet aristocrat.

@BNK2442

2 жыл бұрын

She stolen this idea from the (if I recall correctly, atheist) Michael Houellebecq.

@ameliaclayshulte7784

2 жыл бұрын

Was it really the sexual revolution though? The concept of nuclear family predates the sexual revolution. The extended family was already well on the path of atomization before then. The only thing the sexual revolution did was enable people to dissolve untenable marriages. So yeah, it technically facilitated the further atomization of the family. However, in those situations is it not better to have a atomized family than an in tact dysfunctional one? I think she completely misses the mark here.

@josedanielherrera7115

2 жыл бұрын

@@ameliaclayshulte7784 The sexual revolution did make it sociable acceptable to atomize from one's gene family since the sexual revolution created it's own social standards or lack thereof. In cases of traumatic abuse, yes it is better to separate from a dysfunctional family. It depends on if the abuse is traumatic to the individual in question. It's very subjective, since abuse for one person is traumatic and for another it is not.

Yes, debate with other tribes is much more productive than with your own. But you need to get the better proponents (like the Ayn Rand guy a few weeks ago). This relatively poorly read conservative's arguments completely fell apart at about 01:15 under the weight of Sherman's stats on religiocity/social problems correlates, Pinker's proofs that it isn't all going to hell in a hand cart and so on and so forth...

@drts6955

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah I found myself agreeing less with her positions when she actually laid out her ridiculous reasoning... What I took away from this is religious people are desperate to justify their emotional attachment to religion with nonsense

@jmags2586

2 жыл бұрын

@@drts6955 Hence the drawing of loose correlations between secular phenomena and religion. If science is merely a religion, and trusting scientists is merely faith, and if prominent scientists are merely Gods...then Christianity is as relevant as science. I've heard more than one Christian/romanticizer of the past use this argument. It's so transparent.

This was very interesting.

ms Eberstadt does not fair well under push back, she out right ignored African American religiosity in the face of high single parent homes, she brought up gendercide in America and points out that it occurs in “traditional” cultures-that’s not secularism, in fact those traditional families are likely religious; she also has no good answer to the Paul study

Michael's assertions are correct, and also, just maybe we in UK and Europe are outgrowning such ideas for being inherintely unlikely. The USA... the country with a huge number of prison inmates. I suggest this person reads Andrew Seidel's book The Founding Myth. She has a point, but it is one among many.

Michael, thanks for your great content ❤️🍃...are the happy index data showing Scandinavian at the top of the list legit? Thanks

I like being an atomized individual, it's peaceful.

Most people that say they’re Christian are really not. I’ve seen their works and their faith. I know their fruit so I know the tree.

What if the idea and teaching of Old testament religions and their misuse of Jesus' teaching just didn't answer the real questions people have concerning their lives? Being raised religious just isn't enough.

@jmags2586

2 жыл бұрын

I would add that being raised in religious families is also not enough. Many of us saw the dysfunction the religious family structure can perpetuate and want a better life for ourselves and our loved ones.

I commented on this earlier and then deleted it, because I had to believe that I must have heard or interpreted her wrong. Beginning around 44:50, she talks about "...the zealous faith of secularism" and Protestantism morphing into politics, and says "there's also the equivalent of sacraments... abortion, I think plays that role on the progressive left." Please correct me if I'm losing my mind, but did she actually say that abortion is the equivalent of a sacrament to the progressive left?

@jmags2586

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, she said that. She, like Jordan Peterson, is trying to draw parallels between secularism and religion to show that religion is still relevant. Where religion prescribes LITERAL human sacrifice to appease invisible Gods, abortion is overwhelmingly performed for medical safety reasons. These are obviously not the same thing, but the intellectually lazy can draw loose correlations between the two.

@zeitmeister

2 жыл бұрын

@@jmags2586 Intellectually lazy is definitely the apt term for this woman. Thanks for your response.

@LushonM

2 жыл бұрын

@@jmags2586 Just a correction here- over 90% of abortions are done out of convenience; not medical need. And not all religions require literal human sacrifice. And I think a better phrase for what Eberstadt is referring to is “Belief System” and not religion. Religion assumes the existence of a God of some some sort that exist outside of this world. That’s not the case with secularism; but it’s still a Belief System in the same way religion is.

If God can control the world in order to answer prayers and exercise his will, I give him no permission to enter my psyche; I don't know what he'd do in there and only I should be in my head. Christian's are like, our religion says you have no right to your own head and they're free to believe that.

@fulmarmusic1413

2 жыл бұрын

@@aaronclarke7732 I give him no right to my psyche; that is all.

So were the ppl involved in the civil rights movement merely seeking group connections? Should women go back to repression, submission, and ignorance? People often bemoan the fact that you can't choose the family you're born with. The fact is we now have far more awareness and opportunity to connect and form families of all kinds of our own choosing. Good riddance to the previous millennia of much deeper loneliness and misery.

@viviennedunbar3374

2 жыл бұрын

Social science shows that the Zoomers (the youngest generation) are the loneliest generation in recorded history, much loneliest with more health problems than their parents and grandparents.

@1:30:00 A society with earlier marriage would be better?!

I like the idea of interviewing someone with opposing views, but she just came across as someone who hadn't really thought through her positions. Michael was diplomatic enough not to raise the fairly obvious hypothesis that religion could be declining just because people are better informed these days. Certainly my own personal reason for abandoning religion as a teenager is that science just made a lot more sense.

@viviennedunbar3374

2 жыл бұрын

Catholics are pro-science and believe in Faith and Reason and that all truth comes from God. That's why there is a very deep and strong 2,000 Catholic intellectual tradition. The Big Bang and the expanding universe was the theory of a Belgium Priest who was a maths and physics professor. Catholics aren't scared of science, we just don't think it explains everything about us and our existence.

@DstnyCln

2 жыл бұрын

@@viviennedunbar3374 A broken clock is still right twice a day. The Catholic church originally embraced the Big Bang theory because it implied that the universe had a beginning, i.e. a moment of creation. They were less enthusiastic about the evidence that the universe was 14 billion years old. Or Galileo's evidence that the earth goes around the sun.

Meh, she's an architect of Gilliad

@christopherhamilton3621

2 жыл бұрын

I agree: her bias is showing something chronic…

@ameliaclayshulte7784

2 жыл бұрын

That's what I was going say! It blows my mind how misogynistic members of my own sex can be.

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

These lonely people! Gotta force them to make and raise babies so they won't! I love joking about conservatives because they have numerous ideas that overlap with communist Romania. All that from a political party that says it hates communists with a passion.

Where did the Magna Carta originate?

Mary E. Was incredibly patient throughout this interview. Shermer’s arguments and research fell flat in the face of her logic, research and common sense. She is macro analyzing to come to solutions about what societies would have to do whereas MS is too concerned with the micro and individual and anecdotal. Circumstances to even begin to come to a solution. Regardless, he made a good decision having Mary Eberstadt on on his show.

When we look at evolution of mankind, we see about million of natural disasters and events which occurring randomly. in this case What difference in between searching intelligent life form in space and believing gods? is the mind priority matter for universe?

I can understand people believing in deism. But educated people believing in a personal God who created humans as a special project is so weird.

@josedanielherrera7115

2 жыл бұрын

@Boris Cuduco Sure, just change your definition of 'good' to that of the deist. You can change it into something like 'love' 'family' and so on. It's not hard to imagine why faith in God would be a 'good' thing for some people. It doesn't have to be the personal god Yəhōwā.

@konyvnyelv.

2 жыл бұрын

People believe it because it's socially useful to believe we are children of God

@jameswest7601

2 жыл бұрын

From an evolutionary argument, people believe in God because that is what helped their cultures survive, when all the atheist cultures became extinct. You notice atheists don't want as many children as believers? That's all it takes to become extinct in the long run.

Easy for everyone to say "decline of the family, extended family, community" along with organized religion has lead to alienated young people who "create their own religion" in their political views with religious fervor of self-righteous beliefs and intolerance for others who see things differently. Hard to know what we can do, individually or collectively. And we also know from the history of the christian church is schism after schism after schism so religion doesn't hold people together for long either.

@aresmars2003

2 жыл бұрын

I presume Shermer's perspective is humanism, and apparently humanism is also easily co-opted and corrupted by ideology.

@aresmars2003

2 жыл бұрын

My only QAnon following friend grew up in what she called a religious cult which she escaped at age 17, and has kept a low profile for 40 years, only recently going back home to a funeral of someone she knew. But she also talked about the positive aspects of her cult, basically tightly knit families, so dozens of kids living in communal relationships as close as siblings. But now Q is her "family" (Not really "Q", but a half dozen voices that glomed onto the Q movement to suck people into their conspiracy theories), but she lives with her husband in a "rural" exurb where neighbors don't interact at all, so online is her daily connection to humanity. She literally believes Biden is dead, with a body double, and Trump is still president, and fighting the pedophile deep state in secret, and soon we'll learn what really happened, why Trump "Let himself lose", because it enabled more in the deep state to be caught and arrested, so America can be restored to what it used to be, before the bad people took over. She sees Republicans almost as guilty as Democrats, but Trump as an outsider, along with patriot being put into key positions of power will stop the deep state cabal or whatever. It's really sad, and she believes it all.

How many more billion babies/people would Mary like the Earth to carry? Getting a little crowded already is it not?

@ameliaclayshulte7784

2 жыл бұрын

Magical thinking! Perhaps secular folks have less kids because we're concerned about overpopulation and environmental degradation. We don't believe in some magical afterlife. This life and this planet is all we got. I'd rather have one kid who lives to be 80+ because they had clean air and water, than have 10 children who all die by age 40 from cancer. How is this so difficult for her to understand?!

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

Don't worry, the Idiocracy will continue to squat out kids.

It is very difficult to listen to Theists. This level of certainty displayed by people whose foundations are faith based makes me nauseous.

@seankennedy4284

2 жыл бұрын

What makes me nauseous is the presumption that Christian faith has---in most or all cases---little or nothing to do with reason and evidence.

Whether religion flourish or perish, should only be based on whether the tenets of it are true or not. In times when is no longer necessary to go to college or a Library, when all sorts of information are at the tips of your finger, how are you going to keep most people believing myths, fiction and supertition. In a Universe of trillions of Galaxies, trillions and trillions of stars and planets, distances in the billions of light years; how are you going to keep the masses of people believing that the Creator of that magnificence, could not think nothing better than to come to this insignificant planet in human form, on a suicide mission, to sacrifice himself to himself in order to save us from himself In the words of Steven Weinberg : a Nobel laureate in physics : " Religion is an afront to human dignity ". " Science is corrosive to religious belief, and it is a good thing that it is so. "

1:22:00 that was the point the atheist guy let his guard down, and the lady's response showed why I could never become an atheist. Brilliant response lady Mary.

I love Shermer but he should quit making this logical error about different religions implying the irrationality of all religions. An investigation is required to determine which religion, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc., has more evidence supporting it, if you really want an answer. Most people skip that investigation and accept the authority of their parents, relatives, and/or ancestors to keep peace in the family and to economize their time. This is rational behavior. It does not imply that faith is irrational.

1:21:07 "Does abortion help women? Do the unborn have constitutional rights? I'm not sure we can settle that one here." She lost me quickly here, betraying her biases. She wants stable families, but doesn't want to take responsibility for allowing women to make their own choice on how to limit the sizes of their family. Maybe she WANT everyone to have larger families, wants 5-6 kids like the olden days, because that makes for more dynamic families as kids, and relations as adults. Maybe she wants women to not have government help for child rearing because that takes the father off the hook. Maybe she wants women to have less sex, or none before marriage? Of course it was the pill that made it possible for women to not get pregnant, so it is a matter of education and prudence to avoid the need for abortion now. BUT SURE, let's debate "constitutional right to live at conception" and make women carry babies to term and let that be the "price" for women not saying "no" before marriage, and they can just send them out for adoption, so no harm, right?

@aresmars2003

2 жыл бұрын

My brother was adopted, and he died at age 38 from opioid overdose after his divorce. He was adopted at 6 days and was a sickly child and probably his birth mother was an alcoholic and had fetal alcohol syndrome. He had learning disabilities, trouble reading, and didn't like school, repeated 2 grades, dropped out at age 16. He was my brother and I loved him, but I couldn't help him, and if his birth MOTHER was responsible for some of his misery. I blame HER for bringing a baby into the world who would feel life was painful every single day, unless something could distract him from that inner pain. In my mind, if a mother can't refrain from drinking she should abort the baby, even if I had been that baby. Do it right, or end it.

@seankennedy4284

2 жыл бұрын

Everyone has interpretive biases, based upon what ideas---examined and unexamined---they've adopted. Nothing wrong with this per se. For instance, your bias (to use your term) is that abortion is an ethically legitimate means of family planning. Another is that sexual activity outside of marriage is perfectly acceptable, if not positively beneficial. Most Christians would disagree. Are you therefore wrong, simply because you have an interpretive framework that differs from these Christians? Of course not. Your interpretive framework might be flawed (as might the Christians'), but possessing one isn't itself problematic. Indeed, it is inevitable and necessary for individuals, in order to process new information and make sense of things as they move through the world.

@aresmars2003

2 жыл бұрын

@@seankennedy4284 Do you know my beliefs? Closest probably is "Abortion should be safe, legal and rare." Rare is subjective but it suggests it should remain something with some shame, and best avoided. And the reality is wealthy women (and their naughty teen daughters) will never follow the law, if laws ban abortion, but can have discreet abortions whenever they like, so somehow abortion laws are specifically about forcing unwanted motherhood on poor women. Why would society want to do that? Of course we've had birth control since the 1970s, so why should there be any sexual behavior leading to unwanted pregnancies? Or at least proper use of birth control should be 99% effective. But of course birth control is also considered wrong by many religious people, and its because it suggests there can be a purpose of sex for pleasure, rather than just reproduction. So some Catholics believe if you get married when you're 20, a women is supposed to have 10 children, because that's what happens with 20 years of unprotected sex. And if you're a religious leader who wants to expand the flock, it works. And if you're a leader looking for more poor boys for your army, it works. And its in the bible, right? Be fruitful and multiply. And even spilling your seed, masturbating is a sin. And a woman refusing sex with her husband, that's also a sin. So many sins.

Mary is so sweet, but her ideas are a bit naive. Early marriage is NOT a solution to unwanted pregnancy, Early marriage is not feasible from an economic perspective. She needs a reality check.

I'm all for the pro choice argument as long as it extends to men not being forced to be father's when the female chooses to keep the child. Men should be able to say I don't want the child aborted or leave me alone without being forced into paying child support where's their choice. Further, literally no child is born in America or in the West unless the female chooses to keep it so that's a lot of power and I such men should have some say and not be forced to be a father

@BrianBattles

2 жыл бұрын

The smartest thing is to wear a condom

@ameliaclayshulte7784

2 жыл бұрын

I agree that men should not be forced to become fathers (e.g. pay child support). I think feminists need to do better about lobbying for this. However, only the person who actually is going to carry the child should have the final decision on whether they do so. It's about basic bodily autonomy.

I don’t understand why you are so hostile to religion. As an atheist myself, I can see how Christianity is culturally important to the west and how the loss of religion has led to tribal political warfare and existential dread and I dare say an alarmingly rapid decline in your civilization? You are tearing down religion and putting nothing in its stead. Mary is giving you a comparison of the past with the present, and showing the listeners what the west has lost since the sexual revolution. As one atheist listener, I want to understand the sociological consequences of the loss of religion. I am not at all interested in the very aggressive enumeration of all of the flaws of religion, unless you have something worthwhile to put in its place. At least Nietzsche suggested using culture to replace religion, but that seems to be unviable as Hollywood films seems to be churning out anxious and depressed school shooters. Now what? Seems every society does need its spiritual roots.

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

I often think about how many people are genuinely capable of religion, and how many just go through the motions, hoping Pascal's Wager doesn't get them.

@wanghui562

8 ай бұрын

@@skylinefever Going through the motions is better than not going through the motions, such as becoming a danger to others and oneself. Mindless slaves to religion are preferable to mindless slaves to drugs or gender ideology, wouldn't you say?

@skylinefever

8 ай бұрын

@@wanghui562 It may be preferable to others, but not for the people stuck doing God stuff to not lose Pascal's wager. I think about how many break and and become raging atheists because of it.

@user-yc5lb8fw5r

5 ай бұрын

I agree broadly with this. I mean we see societies without religion like the radical atheists want and they all have different problems.

So all of this is not true: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_and_religion

I don't see how the Christian belief about "going to heaven" solves anything. What if you go to heaven, then you rebel against God?

Races exist and gods don't, so at least "identity politics" has a basis in empirical reality.

Your tweet about trans is bathrooms was idiotic, Shermer. Women has way more chances of being sexually abused by a homosexual women than by a trans.

@BNK2442

2 жыл бұрын

That tweet reminded me why I don't care about your twitter or don't listen to your podcast a lot.

Why are you talking to someone with an imaginary friend?..what could they possibly say that would be worth hearing.

I always think its funny. Europe is more socialised and less religious. I see those countries as more religious. They just have a fusion of church and state.

@EMO_alpha

2 жыл бұрын

@Boris Cuduco Its really just the categories you use or the way you think about things. Sorry I am having a hard time sorting out how to explain what i mean. But are you lacking the religious impulse so much you let the state take care of religious duties or are you sooo religious you make your state goverment act as the church and take on the religious duties.

U Tube destroyed god. Period.

Wtf is an "identity politics practitioner"?