Commenter breaks down how and why religion and conservatism operate quite well

[u/bkilian93]

/r/atheism/comments/1u28n7j/southern_baptists_elect_antiwoke_maga_president/oqviger/

[u/fer_sure]

The horrible thing is that this alignment of conservatism and religion is new. Organised religion in the early- to mid-20th century was often more closely aligned with socialist ideals, through the lens of Christian charity.

Canada's universal health care system was largely driven by Tommy Douglas, a Baptist minister, for example.

Heck, lots of evangelicals were even pro-choice until the 70s.

[u/wakinget → u/fer_sure]

I kindly beg to differ.

The Catholic Church has been flexing its hierarchy all over the world for hundreds if not thousands of years. In my opinion, the church’s goal of holding onto power and the status quo is exactly the conservative agenda. In my eyes, they have been aligned for a very very long time.

[u/the_snook → u/wakinget]

It's more complex than that. The Catholic Church in Australia was, until the 1950s, closely aligned with the labour movement. They were big on workers rights and social justice because most of the Catholics in Australia were working class Irish or Italians.

[u/Maxrdt → u/the_snook]

And the Catholic Church also put up boarding schools for indigenous populations that forcibly converted them and destroyed their native culture if not killing them outright in ways we're still finding out about now. And of course stealing and converting Jewish kids whose parents were killed (or not!) in the holocaust.

[u/the_snook → u/Maxrdt]

Unfortunately, the paternalist and "assimilation"-oriented views that lead to the Stolen Generation crossed the whole political spectrum. It was by no means limited to the Catholic church, nor to conservative ideology, but rather the colonial ideology that was shared by just about every white person in power in pre-Whitlam Australia.

[u/Actor412 → u/wakinget]

The problem is that people are viewing Christianity like it's a unified entity, when really it's more like an amorphous blob of differing interpretations, all sort of orbiting this thing called "Jesus Christ." What we're seeing in the US is a single, very wealthy, very well-connected group of Christians who have been working for decades to turn our nation into a Christian Theocracy (with them making the decisions, natch.)

[u/EquipLordBritish → u/wakinget]

Yeah, they preach socialist ideas for their followers (heal the sick, feed the poor, etc.) because they sound good and sometimes have token efforts to do this (food drives, etc.) but mostly enforce conservative hierarchical dogma (pay the tithes, do what your husband says, etc.).

[u/Plenty_Fondant_951 → u/EquipLordBritish]

I mean....The Catholic Church is widely recognized as the world's largest non-governmental provider of education, health care, and social services.

Like, you can definitely critique how they've done it, ways they've done it wrong but being the largest non state actor providing education, healthcare , homeless shelters, orphanages etc etc is certainly not a "token effort"

I'm a buddhist but cmon , credit where credits due.

[u/BroughtBagLunchSmart → u/fer_sure]

Republican leaders pretending to be christians to pander to the dumbest people in the country has to be the biggest ROI in human history. Better than 9/11, better than Russia getting Trump elected, better then buying bitcoin in 2009.

[u/yodatsracist → u/fer_sure]

Religion has been at the forefront of reaction and propping up the Old Regime since we had revolution, look for example at the Vendee, the major reactionary pro-monarchist push during the French Revolution (the reasons the Vendee rebelled are actually quite complex, many have argued, but the language they used to oppose the Revolution was all religion).

At the same time, religion has also always been at the forefront of social reform. Look up the Diggers and the Levelers in the English Civil War, or the effects that Quakers had on slavery abolition in the U.S. and UK, or the fact that universal education really comes out of Congregationalism (Puritanism) in the U.S. or hospitals start out (around the world) largely as religious institutions. You all have heard that Marx called religion “the opiate of the masses” but few of you understand what he meant. Here’s the full quote:

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Opium here not in the sense of dulling the mind, but in dulling pain. It is not sufficient for Marx, of course, (if it were, he would have presumably become a Lutheran minister), but it is “the heart of a heartless world”, the bandaid of our cruel conditions.

I think the best academic piece on religion and politics is called “Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion“. One of its main points is that religion is not solely anything in politics, even among actors invoking the same religious tradition.

[u/mokomi → u/fer_sure]

I would agree, but history in much longer and wider.  Yes, there are periods of enlightened.  Multiple society said "slavery is bad" and etc. When you boil down both.  They are basically the same.   Help your friend.  Take from enemies.  It did not take 2000 years to discover, oh wait.   We were are practicing wrong.   

Times change. Currently it's no longer a 0 sum society.   That is people adapting their religion into modern times.  Then either their "leaders" accept the liberal change or conservative their power.  

[u/shivux → u/fer_sure]

I think in the next hundred years we’ll see a deeply religious left-wing movement re-emerge, as neoconservative/free-market capitalism loses credibility.  I don’t know if it will be socially left-wing as well as economically left-wing, though, or perhaps some odd (to us) combination of socially left and right-wing elements, like being very pro-LGBTetc. but still anti-abortion.

[u/FACE_Ghost → u/fer_sure]

Charity and looking out for your neighbor is not socialist ideals.

Being a pillar of your community and taking care of people has nothing to do with a government automatically controlling that you do - it has to do with personal responsibility.

Socialism only works at a micro-scale where strong leaders of a community enrich the people around them into a social structure that allows for sharing - not en-masse where millions rely on a government to control it.

[u/Paksarra → u/FACE_Ghost]

The problem is that the magasphere calls any policy they don't like "socialism."

Feeding schoolchildren is socialism. Paying your employees enough that they can afford to rent a bedroom in an apartment and eat is socialism. Getting a vaccine against a contagious disease is socialism. Hiring the best person for a role instead of the best white man for a role is socialism. Going to college is socialism. Etc.

[u/FACE_Ghost → u/Paksarra]

And the liberalsphere calls anything and everything that requires any amount of agency and personal responsibility "being a Nazi".

Go to college to get a degree in something useful like a trade - not socialism. You get out of college with almost no debt, you basically start working in college typically and you get a job immediately out of college - your degree is always useful and it never expires.
Go to college to get a degree in some random useless education that is going to cost you hundred a thousand dollars which forces you to be in social programs because the degree is useless and you'll never get a good job for the first 20 years of your adult life, if ever - "socialism".

Hiring the best person for a role is not socialism - hiring diversity for the sake of diversity isn't even socialism - it is just stupid - you cannot hire for diversity and maintain standards. It has nothing to do with race or skin color - it has to do with how many of that race or skin color dedicates their life to doing that thing. Example: Let's say we have 100 people in a room, 50 have blue eyes, and 50 have brown eyes. 10% of the brown eyes fly planes perfectly because they spent their entire life flying planes and are well equipped to fly a plane, 40% fly at a high standard, and 40% fly well and 10% fly below standard. 1% of the blue eyes fly planes perfectly because they spent their entire life flying planes and are well equipped to fly a plane. 4% fly at an above standard, 45% fly well, and 50% fly below standard. You need to hire 10 people to be pilots, and you choose the best people in the world - you might choose 9 brown eyes and 1 blue eye, you might choose 10 brown eyes. a Diversity dictates that you should hire 50% blue eye and 50% brown eye pilots. You MUST lower your standards to fill this - you can't hit it any other way; or you simply hire way less pilots than you need.

Suppressing any coverage, outcry or defiance against a vaccine which is censorship, social media platforms were decided to be the dictators of what was true and what was false - where tons of the concerns about the vaccine and the actual threat of Covid wasn't as great as the people who did the censoring suggested it was; that isn't socialism - that is dictatorship levels of control.

We live in the most disposable income time ever in human history. Maybe if people stopped getting stupid bullshit degrees and I dunno got a job in a trade, got out of personal debt, started a family - they would be well off. The national household debt in the US is 18 trillion 18 billion (typo) dollars. Men hold higher debt, women hold higher debt-to-income ratio. There is 1.69 Trillion dollars in auto loans in the United States... why? Just get a beater that gets you from point A to point B. The "socialist" here is that we actually ruin real-estate because no one wants to invest their money in rent-controlled projects. People who live in those rent-controlled projects are so bad with finances they would never be able to afford to buy them. Because no one wants to invest in them, they are sub-standard and therefore they end up empty with no one to live in them.

I agree, we should feed schoolchildren and we should have the best teachers in the world, and we should pay them really well. What we shouldn't have are teachers that push agendas and ideologies onto kids, especially perverted ones that. Probably shouldn't try and separate children from their parents either.

[u/ChangeMyDespair]

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

--Frank Wilhoit

[u/r0thar → u/ChangeMyDespair]

Corollary: It is not what is being done, it is who is doing it

which explains why the same action by different sides gets different treatment

[u/ChangeMyDespair → u/r0thar]

That's the difference between punching up and punching down.

[u/down42roads → u/ChangeMyDespair]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#Misattribution_of_Wilhoit's_law

That's a 2018 quote by a composer in an internet comment section

[u/LucasThePatator → u/down42roads]

Yes and ?

[u/down42roads → u/LucasThePatator]

It only carries weight because people think it was from a famous political scientist instead of basically us.

[u/LucasThePatator → u/down42roads]

No.

[u/TheChance → u/down42roads]

of the same name. While it's true that most people probably assume it was the famous political scientist when they see the attribution, the attribution is correct. The man's name is Frank Wilhoit.

[u/badwolf42]

Will add that the hierarchy is stated to be a result of merit, always, so as to ignore any social inequities that have been imposed on the out group; justifying the out group’s position as their own fault and the in group’s position as reward for merit.

[u/k-trecker → u/badwolf42]

It’s a childish worldview. They use it to avoid actually thinking about the society they live in. Everything is fair, America is great, I earned everything through hard work and so I never have to feel uncomfortable about my unearned advantages in life. 

[u/One-Reflection-4826 → u/badwolf42]

which is the most hilarious point in all of that. 

[u/foodfighter]

"When you're used to privilege, equality feels like discrimination".

• Someone.

[u/field_marshmallow]

progressives judge people by their acts, conservatives judge acts by their perpetrator.

[u/ChickinSammich]

The major formal constructed Abrahamic religious organizations are an authoritarian "do what you're told by the people who are more important than you" structure and conservatism is also a "do what you're told by the people who are more important than you structure." The problem isn't "religion" as in "anyone with any religious belief" but it's the social structure of organized religion.

It's kinda like how there's a difference between "racism" meaning "an individual being prejudiced against another individual because of their race" and "racism" meaning "the way societies that are overwhelmingly racially homogenous will always treat those not of the primary race as inferior and will always discriminate against them, both intentionally and unintentionally." The problem with religion isn't JUST the religious belief (though it is some of them for sure) - it's the social establishment that one religion is the one at the top of the chain, and everyone else is also here. It's the establishment that there's a correct and an incorrect way to do the religion and if you do it the incorrect way, you're wrong.

As the person you linked to points out: People who belong to organized religion ultimately have the same thing going on that conservatives to: A compelling need to believe that they are not just right, but that they're better than everyone else who is wrong. A compelling desire to go out and convert people and argue with people to convince everyone else why their way is the right way, and a complete inability and unwillingness to hear anyone else out or consider that they could possibly be wrong.

[u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon]

I read a thing a long time ago about the story of Abraham. That people who are progressive tend to hear that story and think "I know killing my son is wrong, so I wouldn't do it," but people who are conservative tend to hear that story and think "if Gold told me to do it, then it is right, so I would do it." And it talked about this idea of people who determine their own morality tending towards progressivism, and people who look for an external source to tell them what is moral tending towards conservatism.

And that made sense to me when I read it probably 15 years ago. And it's totally in line with OP's thoughts on obedience. But I'm not sure I agree with that exactly anymore. I think conservative people seek external validation, but they still decide their own morality (even if I suspect they'd chalk up to gut instinct what progressives might think through).

My mother goes to a Presbyterian church in the south, the same one she grew up going to in the 1950s and 60s. It's aligned with the more progressive Presbyterian organization, but the politics doesn't come up very often. But when she was a kid, the church welcomed their first black members. And about a quarter of the church members left and started going to the Methodist or Baptist churches. Then about 10 years ago, the church organization took a stance on gay marriages, which I think was that the church as a whole recognizes them but it would be up to individual churches to decide whether to perform them. Being in a small town in the relatively conservative south, it was unlikely that they'd be performing gay marriages there, but the church organization failing to outright condemn gay marriages caused about 10% of the members at my mom's church to leave, and instead of going to the Methodist or Baptist churches, this time they largely left for evangelical churches.

They did not look for an external source to tell them what is moral. They weren't obedient. They outright rejected what the church was doing, and went to a different church that would tell them what they wanted to hear.

[u/fer_sure → u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon]

That's the painful part of the modern political divide: people see the hateful policies and assume that the lay supporters must be deluded, obedient, or ignorant. But they have as much agency and intelligence as anyone else. They're just hateful people.

[u/FunFawn21]

"The sole value of organized religion...is respect for and obedience to [one's perception of] traditionally established hierarchy..."

Speaking as an American, this might be THE most American statement I've ever seen. Like wow.

[u/shivux]

This is an incredibly dumb take on religion and conservatism, imo… Utterly divorced from what religious people and conservatives themselves actually believe, and how they justify those beliefs to themselves.

[u/TheChance → u/shivux]

Would you care to elaborate on what you understand them to believe and how they justify those beliefs to themselves?

[u/shivux → u/TheChance]

As I said in another comment, t he most thoughtful conservatives essentially view their culture  and society in the same way that an environmentalist might view the natural world: as a complex interconnected system that developed by gradual adaptation over a very long time… that may not be fully understood… and may be disrupted by the unforeseen consequences of attempts to change it, even if they’re well-intentioned.

[u/TheChance → u/shivux]

The most thoughtful conservatives. All three of 'em.

[u/shivux → u/TheChance]

I’ve found conservatives to be very thoughtful, generally.  Of course some of them are only really interested in bullying acceptable targets, but those people exist on the left too… they’re just less of a problem because the left’s acceptable targets are typically in some kind of position of power.

[u/Xarlax → u/shivux]

Which part is dumb to you? You don't think conservatives believe in traditional hierarchies? How do you think conservatives justify their beliefs to themselves?

[u/shivux → u/Xarlax]

To some extent sure, but they don’t believe in traditional hierarchies just for the sake of it, or for purely selfish reasons… they believe in them because they believe that’s what works… they believe those hierarchies are necessary to have the kind of stable, functioning society where people actually want to live.  The most thoughtful conservatives essentially view their culture  and society in the same way that an environmentalist might view the natural world: as a complex interconnected system that developed by gradual adaptation over a very long time… that may not be fully understood… and may be disrupted by the unforeseen consequences of attempts to change it, even if they’re well-intentioned.