What is it called when you base the merits of an ideology on the utility it provides? For example, say I endorse Christianity not on the grounds that I am a true believer in the doctrine, but because I think a society that shares a universal spiritual doctrine fares better than one without.
And is this a juvenile way of viewing things?
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Pragmatic.
And kind of.
Utilitarianism
"Cultural Christians" need to fucking die.
Not going far enough
What does 'going far enough' look like?
Belief in the truth of what is useful.
Read The Will to Believe, it's only a few pages:
mnsu.edu
Enjoy going to hell
she's so kawaii, too bad she's a nazi
Christianity is too fucked, all the Jewligions are. You might think
>oh but they just interpret it wrong!
but what it means is that inevitably someone will interpret it in a different way and it will lead to shit i.e. shit for society at large.
PRAGMATISM
read Protagoras and understand his influence on the Pragmatics.
Read based William James.
utilitarianism
Utter shatovism
Why are so many retards in the thread attacking Christianity particularly instead of the idea of the OP's post?
read based C.S.P.
there are superior belief systems for that though and I guess utilitarianism or pragmatism
A stupid faggot
What the fuck I love the AfD party now
This is indeed a juvenile, and worse materialistic, way of viewing things. The only true justification of any law or system of belief is that it have a divine origin. "Utility" is completely tangential to this (and after all different people have different ideas of what is useful). Ideologies which justify themselves by profane, secular, materialistic considerations are false and evil.
...
>divine origin
If something is of utmost importance to the point of being divine, doesn't that mean that it's most likely useful to human society in some way?
>Ideologies which justify themselves by profane, secular, materialistic considerations are false and evil.
all ideologies are evil
>muh hell
is that all you Christ-tards can ever come up with?
Not at all. We don't run around worshipping sound business policy.
It's called going through that phase every pale mediocrity who is likely to be a recovering Grand Strategy aficionado goes through where they grossly overestimate their own social standing and critical faculties, so they talk about society as an agglomerate of Le Bonian shitheads who need the right fears and myths in order to "behave properly" as a way to distance themselves from the hoi polloi in their own heads, despite the fact 1. despite the pretension of being social engineers they're nowhere near positions of power where they'd actually benefit from collective forms of psychological discipline and 2. most of the times the "necessary lies" they believe in aren't even reasonable ways to run society (just imagine industrial society actually regulated by christian dogmas and you'd know why they lost power in the first place) and they are, instead, just positions they consider attractive personality traits, but because they can't defend them rationally they act like they know these ideas are wrong, but are "needed" for others.
I'm not a "Cultural Christian", but it is fairly the only decent argument against all forms of fedora atheism and complete disregard of all religious culture.
Christians always feel targeted, that's their self defense. If you are going to criticize religion you better not talk about Christianity because they get triggered.
"Fedora atheism" is a label created to not take atheism seriously, why bother arguing with atheists when you can just put a fedora and ridicule them.
I am basically an atheist though, I'm using the label to designate those who either would unthinkingly throw all the cultural aspects of Christianity in the trash or are not interested in becoming aware of the aspects of society that Christian values actually likely have a positive influence on.
>I am basically an atheist though.
Yeah right . . .
>I'm using the label to designate those who either would unthinkingly throw all the cultural aspects of Christianity in the trash or are not interested in becoming aware of the aspects of society that Christian values actually likely have a positive influence on.
If Christianity had anything good for society we would have seen its traces in the Middle Ages, instead we got one thousand years of church buildings, war, and feudalism. Societies, specially western society, have improved thanks to secularism from art to solving social and economic problems.
christianity gave an ideology to unite europe after roman power receded, and gave an ideology to defend against mohammedanism
catholicism outlasted it's usefulness as a stopgap between paganism and modernity, but it certainly added value to europe during its heyday.
Catholicism is responsible for modern science and mathematics, that's why 99% of scientific advancement comes from Europe. If Catholicism is as you say why weren't Indians supplying guns to the British and setting up puppet rulers instead of the other way around? Dumbass.
Most "secular" moralists are really just protestants in denial. All those super nice social reforms you love were spearheaded by prots, from the abolition of slavery to the voting rights act.
>Catholicism is responsible for modern science and mathematics, that's why 99% of scientific advancement comes from Europe.
[citation needed]
These are people who tortured scientists and stole STEM knowledge from the middle east during the crusades.
but Jewish atheists are without criticism, good goy.
that's some garbage postmodern functionalism
they're also the people who kept track of accomplishments through writing and actually brought STEM to Europe, so thanks for proving his point
>And is this a juvenile way of viewing things?
Yes
Well one thing's for sure, you had better not call yourself a Christian with that fucking attitude. I HATE people who claim to be Christian but don't actually hold any spiritual beliefs, and Veeky Forums is rife with them these days. So anyone here who's like that, FUCK OFF.
Amen, friend. We need less fake Christians on Veeky Forums. I think we need more real Christians, too, but I'll settle for less fake Christians to start things off.
>The only true justification of any law or system of belief is that it have a divine origin.
Right, so humans will be squabbling and killing one another forever in a language of unfalsifiable claims over which scripture is truly divine. please tell us more about this eternal truth
>inb4 'muh utilitarianism'
if human life doesn't strike you as being of transcendent importance, what the fuck are you speaking for? why even read?
>Mooom, MOOOOOM!
what drives you then, o enlightened basement dwelling nihilist
>implying there can be religious culture without sincere belief or a theocratic state
Fucking hell, we need to move on from the times that no longer represent us and create new culture.
Classical Greece is responsible for modern science and mathematics, that's why 99% of scientific advancement comes from Europe. If Classical Greece is as you say why weren't Indians supplying guns to the British and setting up puppet rulers instead of the other way around? Dumbass.
This looks like the humble style of christians, so you must be in the right here.
>What is it called when you endorse Christianity for the ways in which it benefits you and not because you believe in it
it's called being a member of the Catholic clergy
>50 replies
>"yes it's juvenile"
>"no i won't justify myself"
what alternative is there to Christian ideology? where does a western atheist draw his foundational principles from?
nigga you have the whole fucking western philosophical tradition to draw principles from baka famalam
Dostoyevsky shared a similar view, although I think he actually believed the most part, but he certainly viewed Christianity as a cultural necessity more than something else.
Yes, otherwise we would at the moment be killing people just because.
This is bait
if christianity is just an myth that gives life meaning, then it doesn't
I'd call myself Taoist, but I don't believe in a sentient "God". I'm more agnostic when it comes to religion, but to me Taoism is more of a philosophy that helps me day to day and gives me motivation. Meditation helps me switch off for 30 minutes or so instead of my anxiety overwhelming me, and actively deciding to try and improve my life and situation is a worthwhile goal when things get tough. To me that's the value in "religion". You don't necessarily need to believe in the man in the sky in order to benefit from the ideas. I acknowledge that you don't -need- those set of ideals in order to lead a good life, but it certainly helped me stay focused instead of being a NEET overwhelmed by depression as I was previously.
Christianity is not "good for society" in any way, it can ruin a child's live. I battled spiritually with my faith for a whole year during high school. My grades plummeted and I almost killed myself out of pure anger with God. Christianity is a drug with the potential for abuse and OD.
I don't see in which way you see that it betters society any more than volunteer organizations already do. Secondly, morality isn't something that needs to be reinforced with an afterlife to be upkept.
>implying all religions are built on unfalsifiable claims
>implying that the existence of the Abrahamic god isn't more or less logical
That at least narrows it down to three, the rest are just really into their LARPing.
>I battled spiritually with my faith for a whole year during high school. My grades plummeted and I almost killed myself out of pure anger with God.
From the sounds of it you were such a poorly adjusted youth that you'd have had trouble with whatever you were exposed to. Of course without more detail there's nothing insightful that can be said about your old problem but this doesn't sound like a definitive BTFOing of Christianity at all.
And the social benefits should be obvious, think beyond where the money's going. Imagine if 90% of people regularly attended church. Think of what that would do for social cohesion.
“[God] will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest chemist’s shop.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Appeal to consequences fallacy.
Enjoy being dead forever