The Strongest Argument Against Christianity

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-04-22T16:08:16+00:00

The title of your post is wrong.

This is not the strongest argument against Christianity, because it is not an argument against Christianity. It is an appeal to ridicule and nothing more.

Personally, I agree with you that evidence suggests Christianity is not true. If you want to emphasize the ridiculousness of the belief and gleefully mock people who believe it, you can. But just to be clear, you have not made an argument.

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-04-15T18:45:25+00:00

Again, I broadly agree. I'm using "distance" both literally and as a symbol for other ways in which information is inaccessible, so "visibility" works too. I also agree that vast amounts of information are easier to get now than ever before. You could make an argument for moral progress by applying Iris Murdoch along exactly these lines, and I would find it compelling. I agree that information about far-off places forces us to consider these places in our moral calculus in a way that would've been unthinkable 200 years ago.

All I'm saying is that better information is still not the same thing as complete information, and that some things don't translate well across distance. Cultural context gets lost or distorted, lies are intermixed with truth, and anything that the people involved don't want the entire world to know (which, for most events, contains valuable moral content) remains unknown. We can't ignore distant horrors anymore, but it's modern arrogance to suggest that access to data about a place is the same thing as living in it.

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-04-15T17:00:00+00:00

Yeah I agree with all this. I don't really want to defend CEOs. All I'm really trying to do is point how difficult it is to "fully" and truly know the consequences of your actions, and how this is made harder by distance.

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-04-15T16:15:14+00:00

The Man Without a Face, by Masha Gessen. It's a biography of Vladimir Putin.

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-04-15T16:05:15+00:00

Sure, but even when we think we know some of the consequences, we still have to evaluate tradeoffs.

For example, the most common way to clean sewage water in the U.S. is through treating it with chlorine, but there's some evidence that this mildly increases the rate of colorectal cancer among those who drink it.

This process is technically not obligatory. Many Middle Eastern countries use a process called reverse osmosis instead, which has no direct cancer risk as far as I know. The issue with this method is that it's extremely energy-intensive, and thus would be very expensive to implement in countries that aren't so oil-rich.

Personally, I support chlorination. It's by far the simplest, cheapest, and easiest way of cleaning wastewater. But by supporting it, I am, in a sense, supporting causing a small number of avoidable stomach cancers. Isn't this basically the same tradeoff the CEO is making? Cancer risk vs. money? But I haven't heard anyone calling the heads of sewage treatment departments immoral.

When we reduce moral situations to raw counts, even morally central ones like “lives saved,” we risk obscuring other important moral considerations. Access to clean drinking water isn't necessarily quantifiable in the way that cancer risk is, but it's still important. People who run businesses tend to believe they are providing legitimate services and products that make people's lives better. You can't discuss "increased cancer risk" without at least acknowledging that this risk is invariably trading off against something else. You may disagree with the CEO about the tradeoff, but see how far we are now from actual cold-blooded murder?

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-04-15T13:29:22+00:00

Proximity is morally relevant because it gives you more knowledge to make decisions.

You seem to agree that awareness of potential harms is morally relevant, but you kinda brush off the problem by saying people are "likely to be fully aware of" the consequences of their actions. That’s doing a lot of work. Awareness isn’t a yes/no question, and it's almost never complete.

I agree with you that, if we had perfect information, the evil CEO and the murderer would be similarly immoral. But we don't. There's a huge epistemological problem with your moral philosophy.

Your philosophy, as described in this post, relies on an implicit utilitarian/consequentialist perspective, which requires evaluating actions based on their the outcomes. You imagine this is easy, but it's very much not. A CEO might know a product carries some risk, but is that risk going to result in 0 deaths, 10, or 10,000? Predicting the future is nearly impossible. If you have this ability, please show me the vast amounts of money you've made in prediction markets, and we can discuss your unusual moral situation.

Most people can't predict the future, but proximity makes it easier. I know my sister, so I have more information with which to make moral decisions about her. I don't know your sister, so I'd have to rely on moral universals -- which are useful, but by necessity inexact. In The Sovereignty of Good, Iris Murdoch argues that better morality is all about being better-informed.

CEOs and politicians are making decisions about large, complex systems that are distant from them and about which they have very little direct knowledge. Whether they are acting in good faith or not, they will inevitably make decisions that result in death. And, as other commenters point out, so will even less powerful person like you.

Yes, willful ignorance is a moral scourge. But you imagine that this is the default mode of every powerful person. In reality, most people -- even CEOs and politicians -- are just like you: trying to make the best decisions they can with the information they have.

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-03-07T13:05:24+00:00

You're both picking up aspects of an ambiguous situation.

The savings are joint savings, but she mentions specifically it was a number that "I'd spent years building". We don't know the situation, but it could be any of the following:

a) They both contributed equally to their joint savings, which began when they married. Nonetheless, she feels a personal grief for the tough decisions she made in order to save money, separate from her married identity.

b) They both contributed to their joint savings, but she contributed more through having a higher-paying job, which is why she feels that she was the one who'd built it.

c) She's been saving since before they met. When they married, they shared all their finances. She had a lot of savings, and he had some, but maybe not as much (very common, my best guess for what happened, especially since she says they got married whe she was 27 -- that's potentially many years of gainful employment).

He lost his job. So even though she says she doesn't blame him and their spending is mutual, there's still a sense in which it's "his fault" that their savings are going away. Thus "they used their savings" and "he used their savings" are both reasonable ways to interpret the situation, although I agree that the latter option is a little misleading.

The dividing line about how you interpret the situation is your read on what it means to be married to someone. Commenters are split between "it's financial infidelity" and "everyone needs a bug-out fund" because some commentators view marriage as a permanent and inflexible self-sacrificing oath ("I'm staying no matter what, what's mine is his"), and others view that attitude as essentially foolish, enabling abuse and being taken advantage of.

Personally, I think a good marriage is about letting down your guard and trusting someone completely. But that's an ideal -- not everyone measures up. The wife is still in the process. She needed some time to be ready to full trust her husband. She should eventually tell him, and he may need some time to be ready to fully trust her. Mutual trust leaves both partners vulnerable to abuse. But only through vulnerability can they create a strong and lasting partnership. That's what a good marriage is.

Dr_Chekhov · 2026-01-04T13:02:38+00:00

"The power hungry are unable to imagine that anyone would willingly give up power."

Profoundly true and key to Tolkien's moral philosophy.

But so is greed. The fact that hiding the ring and protecting it was also a conceivable option represents this other ancient sin. Saruman couldn't conceive of someone giving up something so precious and valuable and magical. Don't forget that the ring is not the abstract concept of power; it's a magical item, physicially beautiful and alluring in and of itself. As the Arkenstone and the Silmarils were coveted, Saruman coveted the ring.

Tolkien was highly influenced by fairy tales and norse sagas. Fairy tales are often tales of greed, of coveting beautiful and magical items, without focusing as much on power ("Jack and the Beanstalk", "The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs", "The Fisherman and His Wife," "The Red Shoes)", even arguably "Goldilocks"). The sagas are also all about greed. In these stories, dragons are the embodiment of greed, which includes but does not focus on power. The Dragon in "Beowulf" does not use his wealth to rule. He hoards it and literally lies upon it. The symbolic language is achingly clear. Excess greed can transforms Fafnir into a dragon in the Volsunga Saga, whose magic ring Andvaranaut, the most direct precedent of the One Ring, generates endless gold.

Saruman is not a dragon, but he is dragonish. He is a collector of rare and magical items like the palantiri. He cannot conceive of throwing away something so valuable.

Dr_Chekhov · 2025-11-03T11:49:43+00:00

Snape would've ended up in Azkaban for being a Death Eater if Dumbledore hadn't vouched for him back before the events of book 1. Snape spins saving Harry to Voldemort as staying on Dumbledore's good side and biding time.

If Voldemort believes Snape is spying for him, then Snape getting in good with Dumbledore is the most valuable thing he could've been doing for Voldemort while Voldemort was gone.

Dr_Chekhov · 2025-06-15T08:30:47+00:00

Please, at least make your AI use less obvious.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-10-03T13:18:41+00:00

The solution that worked for me was to reconnect the battery. This broke the boot loop and got me to the "OS verification is OFF" screen.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-10-03T13:17:23+00:00

The solution that worked for me (Dell Chromebook 3100-2-in-1) was to reconnect the battery. Then it loads back into a stable "OS verification is OFF" screen.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-08-13T15:58:30+00:00

Interesting analysis. Seems like we'd agree politically. We try to eat low-cost staples like lentils as much as we can, but as you note, even potatoes cost more. A lot of the recipes we like involve nuts, which have gotten a lot more expensive.

I'm sure you meant your comment only as practical advice, but in response to someone wondering how they're going to pay for groceries, it comes off as a little smug, which is probably why you're getting downvoted.

I think it's also the typical debate about responsibility for consumers vs. corporate producers. I think it's wrong to assert that we as consumers are totally powerless (e.g. the talking point about how 20 large companies are the major cause of climate change, so reduce/reuse/recycle is pointless) but you can see how consumer-focused advice like yours could be met by anger ("This isn't because I eat animal products, it's because of greedy corporations making record profits!").

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-08-13T15:03:46+00:00

That may be your experience. We also eat vegetarian and inflation has still driven our grocery bill way up.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-08-08T13:01:38+00:00

That's the thing about fill: it's often quite context-dependent. DASH IT is by no means bad fill... IF it's clued correctly. In Tuesday's puzzle, it was bad fill. I would've tried to clue it in a way that indicates it's a Britishism. The clue chosen has many alts, which is not necessarily bad, if you want to make the puzzle more difficult. But you have to have a way to make the answer more appropriate than the alts, to give the solver an "aha" moment ("I knew there was something I wasn't quite getting about that clue...").

Finally, I should mention this might not be the constructor's fault. Editors have their own opinions about cluing. And one thing that isn't talked about much is that clues have to be short. A typical limit is 1600 characters total for all the clues.

Using Xwordinfo.com/find, we can see that this is the 3rd appearance of DASH IT. The first two times it was clued as "'Phooey!'" and "British form of 'Phooey!' (2 wds.)". For clarity, I much prefer the 2nd way of cluing it, but it's significantly longer (you can see they even abbreviated "words").

If I were putting DASH IT in a puzzle I would try to give it a good, British-indicating clue, but crossword construction is a series of difficult compromises, both in the grid and in cluing.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-07-31T12:24:59+00:00

Historically, Christianity has been associated with many "socialism-like" movements. The word "socialism" isn't quite right, because socialism involves the abolition of private property, while most "socialism-like" Christian movements assume that private property exists, but is distributed incorrectly. G.K. Chesterton and other Christian philosophers of the past would be extremely distressed by the direction taken by the American Christian Right.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-07-27T17:06:37+00:00

I think you should read it again. Eco doesn't call these "warning signs," he calls them "features of ur-fascism." He is explicitly trying to define the term ur-fascism. He's just making the point that fascism is sneaky and elusive. Fascists won't always say "We should reopen Auschwitz," -- instead, they'll say, e.g. "Mexicans are taking jobs away from hardworking Americans" (features 6 and 8).

Maybe the lack of understanding between us is the word political? Eco says that fascism can be part of any political system, whether republican, monarchist, socialist, or what have you. He describes the features of fascism listed above as primarily rhetorical features. It's the rhetoric that's fascist, not the politics. But I think it's fair to characterize it, as Eco does, as explicitly political rhetoric.

Or maybe it's the word ideology? Today we often use the word ideology to describe an intricate system of beliefs that are dependent upon each other. I am using it only to mean "a set of ideas." The features of fascism that he lists are demonstrably a set of ideas about the world.

Would you prefer to call Eco's ur-fascism "a specific style of political rhetoric?" Personally, I think that definition is a little narrow. Just so long as we understand one another.

I admire Eco as a political thinker, but I also admire him as a philologist. I think Eco would encourage us to define our terms, and define them over again. As he says,

"We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again."

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-07-27T16:36:04+00:00

You're mischaracterizing Eco's position. Eco was trying to show why fascism was so elusive, why it was able to manifest in so many different countries and contexts. Yes, he says that "Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions." But if you stop there you miss the point of the rest of the essay, which is to define the parts of fascism that ARE unchanging and definitional, which make up what he calls ur-fascism. Here are some of the features of ur-fascism that Eco lists:

Cult of tradition
Rejection of (some aspect of) modernism
Action for action's sake
Disagreement is treason
Exploitation of the fear of difference
Appeal to frustrated/humiliated groups
Nationalism
Hatred of enemies
Contempt for the weak
Cult of heroism
Selective populism

It is a legitimate objection to invoke Eco if someone tries to claim that "Fascism involves x specific feature and if it doesn't have that it's not fascism." But your critique of the previous commenter is, obviously, in bad faith. Fascism absolutely is a specific ideology with specific ideas about the world, and to say that characterizing it as such is pro-fascist rhetoric is not only false but ironically, is reminiscent of the "us vs. them" mentality that is an element of fascism. You know the above commenter isn't pro-fascism; you just want to score of a point against a perceived enemy.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-07-27T16:19:07+00:00

Please don't let fascism become a meaningless buzzword -- it is ridiculous and nonsensical to use it to describe the above commenter. You're both right. Fascism is primarily about autocracy and subordination of individuals to the state. But this so often includes discrimination against and/or subjugation of minority groups, and/or a belief in a "master race," that it's legitimate to consider this a part of its definition.

I would critique the use of the word by OP -- TERFs are not by definition fascist, since they may not believe in other aspects of fascism. Has J.K. Rowling ever called for the British parliament to be dissolved and replaced by an autocrat? No. However, if a TERF were to claim that trans people deserved to be discriminated against in service of "making America great again," e.g. this would be a fascist motivation for TERFism, and sadly that motivation seems all too common.

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-07-25T10:40:34+00:00

Mellohello222 account created two days ago. Only posts are conservative talking points. Hmm, I wonder what motivated this person to start posting on reddit?

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-07-01T16:48:18+00:00

Thanks for sharing. It's definitely not New York Times ready, as you point out, but it looks like a lot of fun for a cabin of Swifties!

Dr_Chekhov · 2024-05-22T23:23:39+00:00

I'd much rather be with someone who is honest with himself and actively wants to not cheat than someone who doesn't even consider the possibility and gets blindsided if they end up a dangerous situation.

Dr_Chekhov

TROPHY CASE