The New Religion - Tom Holland | Maiden Mother Matriarch 81 

Two comments after listening to half the video. (I will listen to the rest later on.) 1) It sounds like wishful thinking to speak of reformation, which is something that can happen within a religion rather than across a number of them, even closely related. Christianity is not a single religion. The Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Churches, etc., might achieve some degree of reapproximation, but they remain separate creeds. All of them might evolve in terms of gradually embracing various things that most of society started to normalize before the Church would, but that is just change, evolution, not reformation. Not before such changes become enshrined in mainstream Christian institutions. And while some institutions/churches seem to move in the right direction, this seems automatically compensated by a surge of those going backwards. Western culture owes much to Christianity, but is largely moving away from it, in terms of religion. Westerners may hold on to Christian values, largely, but are less and less adhering to religious belief and Church. It is a secularization of society, and it is not bad, as long as people won't revert to irrational beliefs (which tend to be even worse alternatives). 2) All sorts of causes and movements will strategically play the Christian card, and actual Christians will no doubt adhere to such causes and invoke Christian values, but that doesn't equate with change and growth of Christianity. In fact, many of those embracing such causes will often be rather against religion, especially against Christian churches in the West. Many are progressives who see religion and Church as a reactionary obstacle, many are atheists, and many are leftists who regard religion and Church as part of the (bourgeois class patriarchate) "system" they seek to overturn. Plus, to the extent such causes or movements succeed, it is often the case that those directly concerned will use their empowerment to turn against Christianity even more freely and actively. The Civil Rights movement was very Judeo-Christian but resulted in Nation of Islam, etc. LGBTQ+ people tend to be very vocal against the Church and Christian religion will often be mocked. Immigrants will often appeal to Christian values, only to rejoin non-Christian communities and movements. What happens with Christianity is analogous to what happens with democracy: people will appeal to and exploit them, only to undermine them further instead of strengthening them. Wake up. Both Christianity and democracy urgently need deep reforms, to update, vivify and strengthen them. What we are going through is not a reformation, though we badly need one. We are going through decadence. Our societies are getting less and less Christian and democratic. Not that I miss going go Church, etc.. Not that I want retrogrades to succeed, but they are, and are part of the problem. We need or want the essence of Christianity, or at least certain values, to flourish, that's all. To educate people in them successfully, we better offer a modern religion to those in need of guided spirituality. We still don't have any religion modern enough, updated to align with modern knowledge and society. As for democracy, not even progressives seem capable to understand how crucial and urgent it is to start transforming nominal democracy into actual democracy, where true citizens will enjoy true decision power on a daily basis, politically speaking. People don't get what they want and blame "democracy" (then turning to populist authoritarians), without anybody explaining them it is lack of democracy that frustrated their expectations. We get what we decide to go for, given the opportunity. It is not voting for political "representatives" once every so many years that we can hope to actually decide anything. They answer to their organizations, sponsors, etc., and they are those deciding on a daily basis, what to do and what not, instead of us. That needs to change.

Agreed, Im reading it right now. Its great~

I would also recommend "The WEIRDest People in the World; How the West became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous" by Joseph Henrich (2020). Not a million miles away but arguing similar things from a social science perspective... all starting in the 6th Century with the changes the Church brought to marital and inheritance laws in the West... which then over many centuries went on to create the modern world.

@@WH-hi5ew interesting, i just went there after dominion, via war and peace (CLANG). I'm looking forward to the literary fallout / responses to dominion - hopefully there'll be plenty of it. Quite the turnaround after four horsemen, i hope the gen X's are into it.

@@alexgibson2871 I'm interested in TH's ideas of a second-Reformation... I think he's on to something.

@@WH-hi5ew Thanks for the Reccomendation.

Always was ...

Ah, but even bedrock erodes over time, perhaps all things are vibes, and impermanence. If a tree falls in the forest, do you like ice cream koans?

@@Jules-Is-a-Guy Agree to disagree I guess. Either way, we'll both be gone before we have the opportunity to see if Christ fails.

That's the whole intention of those who want to tear western civilization apart. If they can tear down the current system then all that's left is a state of chaos, which is thr perfect space to grab power and implement your ridiculous ideology

There is no bedrock. Religion is an attempt to get put of the 'turtles all the way down.' Just look at how Christianity has changed over two millenia. Fundamentalism is an attempt to have an unchanging bedrock and that is perhaps the least spiritual of all.

Thank you. 😊

The problem is that neither you nor any other Christian has the right to impose what YOU believe God wants.

In addition, there is the peculiar fantasy that a fetus is just part of a woman's body, like an arm or a breast. From a Christian perspective (I'm looking at you, @marthell6159), this is nonsensical. But I also find it nonsensical from the perspective of logic, for unlike an arm or a breast, a fetus can only be created by two separate autonomous individuals. The "it's my body and I'll abort if I want to" school utterly and illogically pretends the father does not exist.

@@marthell6159that’s why we have legislation and legislators

@@marthell6159 Why not? An individual Christian can vote for laws, can't they? And ANY law is an imposition of one's belief upon another. Creating "Hate Speech" laws is a great example of how the political Left imposes their interpretation of what is right upon the rest of society.

It’s a transmutation of the instincts & values continuing, evolving, & now applied to other topics. Original sin = exhaling CO2. Original sin is a bad founding principle no matter what.

@@bryanutility9609Depends on who’s defining. Augustine’s view was largely unique to him, and driven by his gnostic background and struggle strongly lusting after women. There are other views such as ancestral sin, that make a lot more sense.

Excellent point.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

@@justchilling704”ancestral sin?” Was St. Augustine married? I have no problem with lust after women any more then hunger for food in that sense.

The most sensible comment made here. Reformation is a glorified euphemism for simple out and out heresy.

Like Molech? You like dead babies

i'm gonna start using this

@@KermRivwhat do you mean the "old gods"? They are right there in the background feeding their children, the "new gods"........

Christianity is the heat shield against pagan psychoses. Multiculturalism, environmentalism, feminism, communism, fascism, globalism...

The "new" gods ARE the old gods. And they're bloodthirsty.

Spot on

Du hast absolut recht. Vor allem in Deutschland scheint man das aber nicht zu begreifen. Man glaubt die eigenen Werte sind schützenswert, weiß aber nicht warum. Und wenn dann irgendwelche Muslime das Kalifat fordern, fehlt der Tatendrang, diese Angriffe zu zerschlagen.

....kinda true. But : the modern western values will always survive. It might take another 1ooo years, but so be it. Doesnt matter. Even if it takes 5ooo years, who cares. Any and evry religion will die out - religions that do not mention the importance of brushing your teeth twice a day. Religions is old, dated stuff. Humans are often violent, okay. But having discussions about : is islam or christianity a religion of peace? Thats nonsense. Any wealthy modern society is peaceful .... wants peace for life n good business. Religions are lame ole stuff, okay. But people like to get violent, especially young men. That comes from envy and taught self hatred. The notion of you are not good enough. The preacher then only gives a direction.....

I often joke "Follow the east. Be more like Japan and South Korea. They have sealed borders and don't mind being called xenophobes."

​@@skylinefeverThe Poles seem to have the right idea on it from a more western perspective.

Perhaps more importantly, the cultures running on vibes are dying. The Church is alive and well...in the global South. And there these questions are already well settled, because heresies have not been permitted to flourish.

@@jasmadams The vibes come out of the bedrock though... hence the Mobius strip idea that he mentions. There is obviously now a tension between the vibes and the bedrock... hence this idea of a new reformation... it's paradoxical as he suggests.

There is an ocean of difference between the redeeming victimhood of Christ the incarnated Logos and the victimology of modernity. One is a metaphysical and historical reality, the other an ideological caricature of it. Instead of a new reformation, I would call it an ancient gnostic deformation. It's as old as 'you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil'. There is something off in Tom's argument, and Perry has intuited it.

@@deusvult9837 Modernity however comes out of our Western European Christian history. Specifically changes to marital and inheritance laws made by the Roman Catholic church would have wide ranging implications for European culture, society, history, psychology, economics and politics. I appreciate you are making a faith-base point... I'm making a social science historical one.

Yes, I agree. I thought it was obvious that it’s not a new Christianity. It’s Gnosticism again, that Jesus was just a free spirit, a hippy walking around spreading love, teaching people to find their inner Jesus. That’s not “new Christianity”, it’s Gnosticism

Exactly, I agree. And most of the things mentioned are evil manifestations.

@@bensanderson7144 That's not what the Gnostics taught. Like, at all.

@@venus_envy yes, it is; it is spot on, 100% accurate.

I forgot transcendentalism. Regarding the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jnr is influenced by the Transcendentalist Unitarian Theodore Parker. Then the murders of (white) Unitarians Rev James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo were important in forcing Lyndon Johnson's hand. Irony there of course.

Ah shaddap

😂😂😂😂😂

How would you know? He wears a mask to work.

@@JCRezonna-dl5qz he doesn’t have Covid i guess

Hey Jeff. That sounds good. The 60s were just that. Reform. And yes, to much drugs. And good music. All very necessary. Lets not be negative about that. Christianity has had 2000 years of christian wars to show us its true (lame) colours. Now lets observe this new reform for the same amount of time. Okay?

Peep shows exited in the 1940s. Playboy existed in the 1950s. Somehow the 1960s were the difference?

@@skylinefever If anything the 1920s were even more debauched. These people lack historical perspective, they are doom-sayers.

​@@skylinefeverChild prostitution was quite high in the late 1800s as well.

@@skylinefever There was naughty stuff in the 1920s as well, and in the 18th century for that matter. But yes, the 1960s were different, that was the decade that really sought, and to a large extent did, invert the hierarchy of values on a large scale.

Pageau's ideas on beauty and Mary combined with D.C Shindlers ideas on freedom lend themselves well to Louise's interests

That and the 6th commandment. Even Late Antique pagans were aware that Christians prohibited abortion. The church never had any other position.

Islam is dying and everything else she said is the sort of thing that happens in phases throughout history. Too many people lack perspective. She reminds me of the 19 year old I saw posting online a few years back thinking covid lockdown would be permanent. Childish, in a way. I had planned to buy her book but I might skip it now, to be honest.

​@@venus_envyWell it IS in a way, for people who've stayed WFH.

Tom would welcome the Antichrist as the ultimate culmination of the evolution of Christianity.

Islam is dying ? With England half islamised, that must rank as the joke of the century.

Only one persons bodily autonomy matters

​@@grannyannie2948But whose child is it really? Only the mother's? Or both parents? If the former, then why would a male take the risk of participating in parenthood?

@@iliasmastoris529 I do agree. And it's one of many flaws in Tom's argument. There is no regard at all for the babies bodily autonomy. And I've never heard bodily autonomy described as a Christian belief, does he mean free will, which is not the same thing. I'm glad my Australian state doesn't have abortion.

Which state is that, ​@@grannyannie2948? And which offenders are punished? And how?

It is kind of disappointing that Tom uses such a weak argument for abortion....unless he is just stating that the pro choice inclination comes from a Christian mentality

Good point. The sword among the books seems oddly cultured.

Haha I thought the exact same thing

He is a scholar of ancient and medieval history though, he probably quite likes being surrounded by artifacts

In the 19th century they had what was called muscular Christianity. We need to return to that.

What is muscular Christianity,​@@grannyannie2948?

I agree TH places too much primacy on the influence of Christianity. There are other elements of this new religion which mean 'post modernism', (in a wider sense than usually understood) may be a better descriptor.

It started long before that when some Christians tried to fight the slavery that is promoted in their scriptures.

What is 'muscular Christianity,' @@grannyannie2948 ?

Spot on.

South Korea in particular is marked by a large Christian population.

Affluence comes from increasing worker productivity, primarily through technology fueled by large amounts of cheap energy. It has been observed at least since the 18th century (John Wesley's famous observation, for example) that wealth has a liberalizing effect on cultural and moral values, and so does democracy as even Plato and Aristotle observed.

I had been doing those things when the God Squad ordered me to do the opposite.

Incentives drive behavior, I wonder how many miserable things Christians only did because of hellfire and brimstone BS.

Yes. This is exactly the trajectory. Hence the rise of Islam. The more our culture disintegrates the more attractive Islam becomes.

Buddhist or Hindu or Jewish nationalism is poles apart from Islamic or Communist Secular or Christian nationalism. If October 7, 2023 doesn't wake up Muslims, Communists/Marxists, and Christians, then they shouldn't try to make others sleep who are waking up.

Yep, once removed no need to replace

@@mathish1477 spoken like a true anarchist

@@anthonyml7 no, not an anarchist, an evolutionists

@@anthonyml7 evolution, not revolution - totally different

@@mathish1477 Nvm, we actually do agree

The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisest man.

That’s a benefit to everyone who doesn’t follow the heresy, though

No, that’s Feminism v3 and v4.

The same thing happened when Rome adopted Christianity under Constantine

I think fertility in the Roman Empire increased after the adoption of Christianity, they talked about that in the interview? There is a evolutionary biology book called 'Darwin's Cathedral' by David Sloane Wilson about how Christianity increased fertility.

Only relatively. The sexual revolution has accelerated the reproduction of short-term-minded, r-selected people, globally incentivizing antisocial sexual pathologies.

Actually he’s just right & totally nails it. Hitler is the devil in modern mythology. That’s your religion even if you don’t know it.

No, secularism is a derivative of the industrial revolution. Prior to the industrial age, religion permeated every aspect of culture. Kings ruled by divine right, heresy and witchcraft were capital offenses, Jews were barely tolerated on the margins of society, etc. With the industrial revolution, we see families, villages, guilds, etc. being disrupted, and secularism followed shortly on the heels of those changes.

I assure you I'm not trying to validate abortion here, but what you cite here is not canonical, which is normatively a huge distinction in Christian circles. Anyone after the closing of the canon can write anything. While I can absolutely believe that the intuitions fostered by a general attentiveness to the lessers of society (forwarded by Christianity) would couple with an innate sentiment against abortion, it is interesting that it's not covered in the canon. Also interesting is the only place it gets mention in the OT is when God commands it to be done to Israel's enemies, and as a ritual of administering a potion to women suspected of adultery (if guilty, they abort, via, presumably, an herbal toxin).

The Romans wrote with some curiosity that Jews and Christians did not practice infanticide

My reply disappeared. The Romans recorded that Christians did not.

@@grannyannie2948 The Israelites proudly recorded their own committing of infanticide, on both sides of the womb.

@@grannyannie2948 Source? All Roman writers we have like Musonius Rufus and Julius Paulus denounced infanticide except when the baby couldn't live due to deformities.

Please study the Muslim religion, with special attention to the figure of Mohammed, before you venture to pass comments on religions....Thanks!

.....he was a warlord.

@@crockmans1386Jesus was a slave. As if being a war lord is bad.

​@@bryanutility9609 trolling?

@@danielmaher964 just stating the obvious

MLK was also an atheist and a Communist, although he did not publicize these facts, nor did the media.

no, that would have defeated the object. The object being of course a drip drip criticism of christianity.

🎉🎉

Very well explained. That’s a prefect description for anyone disposed to believe in the supernatural. And, to be honest, I really don’t see why Protestant believes make such a fuss about transubstantiation. It’s no more difficult to believe or understand than the virgin birth or the Resurrection. All these things are a matter of faith. You either believe in the supernatural, in which case anything is possible, or you don’t. I I don’t anymore, which, I have to say is making life a lot less complicated for me. But I do however respect those who believe, so long as they recognise that unbelievers also have very good reasons too.

The thing is, to be a heresy you must be at least superficially Christian. These modern left wing movements don't pass that test. They are anti - Christian in varying degrees, and their values derive from Enlightenment Deism and democracy, not from the holy scriptures or the church fathers.

There is no "Christian liberalism." Liberalism was primarily a creation of Deists and closeted atheists and also some confessors of a watered down version of Christianity, such as John Locke who considered the Holy Trinity to be an optional doctrine rather than a core tenet of the faith. Marxism is a variant of atheism. Atheism is central to it because it is rooted in a materialist (naturalistic, mechanistic) view of reality. So no, atheism is not just another version of Christianity. Neither is Deism or Judaism.

"Climate change" is a cover for the one world government movement.

On the contrary, he is saying there isn’t one real Christianity, but an impulse that goes in all sorts of directions, “breeding paradoxical responses”

...is there a new christianity? Really? Serious deep christian belief is a thing of past centuries. No religion stands the test of time... when science is allowed to investigate old cultural myths...

Well said. And they are confusing bodily autonomy with free will which is not the same thing

For the record, I am pro-choice (but a 'safe, legal and rare' moderate) and was also against the dumb COVID lockdowns.

@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 I see. I'm Australian and there are no abortions in my state. Its perfectly legal but no doctor in the state can bring themselves to perform them. And that kind of sums up many peoples opinion really. We are ofcourse famous for lockdowns. But that was Victoria, our California. My state closed the international border and quarantined the state border and eliminated the disease. Schools closed briefly in March 2020, but we quickly realised kids weren't at risk. No masks until right at the end and never outdoors and never children. We didn't really have lockdowns. Just nonsense like you were safe to sit in a pub and drink, but standing up to drink was dangerous. It was the 💉 that was cruel and unfair. Due to strict mandates to work.

Admittedly, I was pro-vaccine but never pro-mandate (just as I was never pro-lockdown), @@grannyannie2948 . P.S. Which state of Australia is the most geographically beautiful?

I think "bodily autonomy" is an extremely modern issue! I don't remember any discourses on this topic from any of my readings in ancient or medieval sources. I haven't read everything by any means, but if you are aware of any pre - Enlightenment sources that discusses "bodily autonomy," then please cite a source! I think this is an exercise in anachronicity.

speaking of angels and genders, it always struck me that the people claiming to not fit into the man/woman binary and identity as something exotic in between or outside of that aspire to somehow transcend humanity and wish to be some kind of angelic androgynous creatures ps. and when they inevitably fail to achieve this enlightened angelic state, like fallen angels, the result can be demonic

I often think the same about angels on a pin.

I do too. And II’m anti Christian.

Yo, are you an AI, or a bodhisattva?

I didn't think either of them were onto anything

love listening to both these two. i was reminded of the stephen fry/JBP chat. In that one Fry refused to contemplate the larger cycles of religion/history and overarching views, almost condescendingly, while JBP didn't quite manage to get down to Fry's level of random or small scale events, or articulate the meeting of the two necessary views. but this one feels like new territory for me, both Tom's historical thesis and Louise's reappraisals of things considered done and dusted. great stuff.

I believe that individuals have freewill but societies simply react to everything that went before. Ww1 led a generation later to ww2 which led a generation later to the social revolution of the mid 60s and so on. The ripples dissipate as the ages pass. You and I can change the direction of our own lives but our impact on broader society is negligible, governed as it is by people who are fully ensconced within the group think of their own political parties.

Well said! What would a so called third 'reformation' look like. Christianity would be unrecognisable. Definitely a slippery slope.

So obviously, and many of the new movement's participants would readily agree. To call a reaction against Christianity a new version of Christianity is an absurdity, although it is not an absurdity that Holland himself invented. I have usually encountered this argument among some activists on the far right who dislike Christianity for reasons of their own and have been making this argument for decades. I suspect this line of thought begins with Nietzsche, even though Nietzsche himself is too much of an individualist to be described as right wing.

A Communist manifesto (no hyperbole).

Actually, yes, they cannot, even today that's true for so many godless dictators. The Romans, pagans and barbarians regarded human life as worthless, human sacrifices and gladiatorial combat were common. The strong ruled the weak. Christianity contributed to the general feeling that human life is valuable and worthy of respect. Christianity formed a new standard, higher than any which then existed in the world. The justice teachings of Jesus are closely related to a commitment to life's sanctity.

It is Christian, but not uniquely Christian. Similar rules have been formulated in some other cultures.

The death of christianity is a done thing, it died on the fields of Verdun 1916 with much horror and even use of mustard gas. Islam is still fighting strong, as they havent had their Renaissance moment yet. Fact is, you cant go back. We have science now. It wont go away. And science is NOT a new religion. It is a means, a way to investigate interesting complex ideas or problems and it is a way to expose and uncover old beliefs and pure BS.

Science is the only belief system ever .... that says : we dont know. A system that doesnt feed you BS.

I say the hellfire and brimstone preachers are the biggest moral relativists. Their relativism is that kuds who are paranoid schizophrenic from all that shit are better than more nonbelievers.

Don't you know groups like the OTO and LeVay's Church of Satan are just new Christian movements? (I am being sarcastic, but no more absurd than Holland and others before him who have advanced the same argument). By the way, L. Ron Hubbard was also a member of OTO, and his Scientolgy cult is modeled closely on OTO except that it replaces magick with psychotherapy and science fiction. Two very lucrative scams.

Jolly Heretic Dutton argued that religions just promote group survival tactics under the name "Will of God."

Behavioural genetics will always get struck down for racism and classism.

Once you admit that behavioral genetics (a euphemism for sociobiology) is a thing, and that adaptiveness matters, you have already lost. The entire heritage of liberalism/leftism since the Enlightenment is grounded on the opposite assumption. The "fringe right" can be accurately summed up as "biology matters," while the whole of the opposing camp in all its egalitarian variants is based on the assumption that biology does *not* matter, which has been the documented position of Western intellectuals since the 17th century.

They’re more interconnected than you think-all three of the others have only cropped up in the ground of Christianity.

@@geoffstemen3652 We're more connected to slugs than you think, we both cropped up from single-celled organisms.

@@geoffstemen3652 No, you and Holland (among others) are wrong. The others in that list are self conscious and deliberate departures from Christianity. This is like calling Christianity a new version of paganism because it developed in a Hellenistic cultural context. It is a silly argument. Christianity is not and was not paganism and today's anti - Christian movements are not Christianity.

@@Jules-Is-a-Guy Lazy, invalid comparison

@@michaels4255 They think they are revolutionary ideas, but not so. The seeds of rationality are in a religious conception of the world, and especially revolutionary, salvific thought is just recast Christian theology. I’m not putting that up for debate, it is the case.