'Monkey Girl' and Religious Tribalism

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@Tim

@dga471

Because you claimed that the toxicity from religious tribalism is worse than other types of tribalism.

No @dga471!

I . DID. NOT!

The most I claimed is that this behavior is “not typical”, of the (as I have repeatedly pointed out) very broad range of manifestations of tribalism in a modern society.

This broad range covers everything from the very innocuous and very commonplace, to the very rare and very toxic (e.g. genocide).

You claimed that other types of tribalism “does not typically rise to the level of toxicity” as that displayed in the Dover trial case. To reword your statement:

1. Religious tribalism can be very toxic, as in the Dover case.
2. Other sorts of tribalism can exist, but they are not usually as toxic as the religious tribalism in the Dover case.

It’s fair to phrase that “religious tribalism is worse than other forms of tribalism”.

Here are some quotes to back up what I’m saying:

@dga471

Now you’re strawmanning my argument. I didn’t claim that you claimed that toxic tribalism is only present in religion. However, you did claim that tribalism in other forms “does not typically rise to the level of toxicity” in the case of the Dover trial:

@Tim

I agree that tribalism simpliciter “is common”, and would go further and state that it is ubiquitous wherever groups congregate, even without some form of perceived threat. It is present in the rivalry between supporters of rival sporting teams, it is present in high school cliques.

It does not however typically rise to the level of toxicity that Edward Hume documents in his book (summarised in my OP). It does not typically lead to violation of others civil rights. It does not typically lead to plaintiff intimidation, it does not typically lead to death threats.

Next:

@Tim

I never stated that “the US was [or is] on the verge of social collapse”, in fact again this is viewpoint that I’ve disavowed:

You’ve forgotten the context of my comment, which is to respond to the following comment of yours, where you argued against the notion that tribal hostility is typical by saying that if it were, then society would collapse:

@Tim

With the complexity and mobility of the modern world, if such tribal hostility was typical , to the extent of intimidation and threats, we would have social collapse. This is why I view your ‘skepticism’ as blatantly counterfactual .

My point is, tribal hostility exists in many functioning societies in varying degrees (and so it is “typical” in that sense, similar to how it is typical for any large city to have a busy police department), and that does not mean that that such a society is on the verge of collapse. You need a lot more of such incidents to cause collapse, and in the case of the Dover trial, I don’t think we were anywhere close. So I don’t think you have disproven by argument that while we should denounce the despicable behavior surrounding the Dover trial, it’s unfortunately not uncommon in high-profile cases like that, and that does not mean that society is going to collapse.

@Tim

And this places not-insubstantial elements of conservative American Christianity into this class of “criminal and extremist behavior”, a class that would include ISIS and Al Qaida.

Again, I don’t think that the behavior displayed by Christians in the 2005 Dover trial should be regarded as “normal” or praiseworthy. But it’s a real stretch to compare their actions to what ISIS and Al Qaeda have done. ISIS “systematically committed torture, mass rapes, forced marriages, extreme acts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocide, robbery, extortion, smuggling, slavery, kidnappings, and the use of child soldiers.” Did anything even close to that happen in the Dover trial? Even in the US today, which is much more polarized than in 2005, nothing close to that is happening on a systematic scale like what happened with ISIS. I think there’s a large, large difference between the Dover Trial and ISIS that it’s ridiculous to put them in the “same class”.

@Tim

It appears however that you are living in the US. I’m not in the US either, but have lived and worked in two countries, Australia and New Zealand. Neither is perfect, but neither demonstrates the degree of voter-disenfranchisment, violence, inequality or religious animosity I see reported in the US.

Since you don’t live in the US and obtain most of your information about it from news reports, have you considered to what degree your perception is biased in paying more attention to the bad things that are happening in the US?

I’m not saying that the US is perfect, or that the “media is lying”, or that what you’re reading in the news is completely false. I’m just saying that bad news and shocking developments are naturally more likely to be reported compared to more mundane, regular features of everyday life.