Even having this topic open for discussion at all is something I find surprising because the rules of the forum say:

> "Racists, homophobes, sexists, Nazi sympathisers, etc.: We don't consider your views worthy of debate, and you'll be banned for espousing them."

And the "etc" pretty obviously includes a maximal dogmatic presumption that any challenge to left wing orthodoxy on any questions of social issues whatsoever is clearly disallowed, no matter how civil, no matter how educated. That is what this rule as written means and any disagreement with me on that point concerning what this text from the forum's rules in fact says is frankly dishonest, because words mean things.

Which means I may very well get banned for pointing this out:

The trans movement is fundamentally anti-philosophical and dogmatic. Dissent is not tolerated and even attempting to define the boundaries of orthodoxy so as not to stray from them is against the whole spirit of that community because what's valued there is a vibe, not an idea. Criticism is for apologists to dismantle outsiders with nihilism, not to show the movement itself a way forward. There will never be a genuine philosopher for the trans movement unless it grows past this stage early religions always have.

Saying the trans movement is a "cult" is actually intelligent if by "cult" you mean "early stage of a newly emerging religion" in a historical sense and not in the pejorative sense of the 20th century anti-cult movement. "Cult" after all, is the root word of "culture" and the historical root of cultures as well. It remains to be seen whether anyone within the deeply anti-conservative trans community will ever grow the conservative instincts necessary to conserve their own community in the long term, so that they can eventually grow from a cult into a religion and from a religion into a philosophy. (a process that typically takes at least something around 150 years)

Not that I even want this to happen: I just recognize the historical pattern.

But anyway, about the rules of the forum: this raises the question of why the trans question is being allowed at all. You're not allowed to question feminism or the gay movement, but you are allowed to question the trans movement? Why? What possible combination of philosophy and political theory allows for drawing the line at such a completely abitrary place?

As far as I'm concerned, trans is just gay with extra steps. All these movements are a package deal, not meaningful to evaluate separately. And I've thought for years that, while I understand you need to have some rules to maintain some common ground, a philosophy forum which would ban Thomas Aquinas, were he alive today, can't be any good.

Believing some people have dark skin because "God" cursed them is a little too offensive for me. — Athena

I hope you are aware that the Book of Mormon completely reverses its narrative on race by the end of the text. It sets things up to make you think it's going to side with 19th century white racialism early in the text, but then pulls the chair out from under that view by the end. It goes to the very core of that worldview and then brutally rips the guts out of it. Not as an outsider, but from a place of deeply understanding it, paying the narrative cost of doing that. And this wasn't an accident by any possible account either because Joseph Smith Jr and the early Latter Day Saints were vocally anti-slavery in a time and place where it was physically dangerous to be so. It is an explicitly liberal text (in the 19th century sense of the word liberal) and not what you'd assume if you go into it with a shallow reading, uninformed by historical context and then quit reading early on because of a stereotype.

Yes, it does say some things to set up the kind of world where white racialism makes sense: the kind of world which that worldview implicitly assumes must be how things work. But those statements do not stand unexamined by the end of the text.

Now I'm not saying everybody who gives it a fair reading does or should get convinced or converted to the Mormon church. I'm not with the Mormon church. I'm just saying, for the moment, that this particular charge of racism against the Book of Mormon can't be sustained given what was really going on both in the text and in the historical context of the 19th century.

Much ink has been spilled on the question of whether the Book of Mormon is true or false -- which is fair enough, because the text obnoxiously necessitates that kind of evaluation in its opening lines. But I think insufficient attention has been paid to the orthogonal question of whether the Book of Mormon is deep or shallow. My argument on this would be that no matter where you stand on its historicity, in fact, it is deep.

This is real disappointing, because I was hoping for something far more interesting: The question of, when specific religions fail to be passed on to the next generation, what causes this failure to happen, approached as philosophy of history. And not just religions but institutions, beliefs and practices of all kinds.

Instead, it seems to be just garden variety Reddit atheist stuff from the 2000s.

This is why the first new world religion spawned in the New World, Latter Day Saintism, fixes this problem with the Book of Mormon.

T

So, can the state (governing body) just dictate that women cannot have abortions unless their health is severely threatened? In other words, could all 50 states have a policy that automatically rejects abortions on the grounds of rape and incest? — Chany

I'm Pro-Life. The media and pro-abortion activists always seem to assumr this is an irrational religious thing. That only shows they're in an echo chamber. They aren't listening or thinking.

Pro-Lifers are logical. They aren't just expressing a personal dislike of abortion as being icky or disgusting. They are reasoning from the premise that abortion is murder and that's not an extreme position in the Pro-Life movement -- that is the mainstream Pro-Life view. So they do of course want to ban abortion / murder.

Are rape and incest babies somehow less human than other babies? If abortion is murder, then no exception for rape or incest can be rationally justified. Such a thing would be logically indefensible.

By the way, I'm not praising Hamilton here either. He had his own set of problems. But going to France wasn't exactly a genius move.

Also, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a racist. A great songwriter, but also a huge racist. He's like a 21st century Richard Wagner. Puts on huge impressive stage musicals constructed out of leitmotifs, and is super racist in his politics. Totally Wagnerian.

Jefferson gave up on the inanity and went to France.

That is called real thought, based on real knowledge — ernestm

What?

You do know France erupted into a violent revolution which was a complete and utter failure to protect the people's liberty to such an extreme degree that they spread war to all of Europe all for nothing under an egomaniacal dictator and eventually straight up abandoned the republican project altogether and restored the monarchy just to stop the madness, right?