OK, I dislike Douthat more than most but the following passage is simply disgusting:
Or see converts to Catholicism such as Ross Douthat who act as self-appointed Catholic purity cops, while America’s cradle Catholics reject many (or all) of the doctrinal items on offer in the Church cafeteria.
So upholding a faith stupidly and non-reflectively just because Mommy and Daddy told you to and you never grew up enough to question their right to impose a faith on you is better than consciously choosing your own worldview? Seriously? What the fuck does it even mean to be a “cradle Catholic”? Brrrr, I’m disgusted.
If one converts as a matter of conscious choice, then, of course, one is more likely to take the faith seriously than those who just follow it by rote without ever giving a second thought to why they “believe” these things.
Clarissa's Blog 
Metaphysics. It hold that philosophical essentialism is always more appealing than contingency or choice or anything else.
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This was supposed to be written by an ultra-progressive person. If progressive people are so in thrall to essentialism, what can we expect from the rest?
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I’ve concluded that this is absolutely a problem with American culture. It’s deeply essentialist. It makes for unwitting anti-intellectualism even when the opposite is intended. For instance, people will seek to defend “science” against “women”, or something like that. They may not, indeed, express it in exactly those terms, but you can see they attempt to defend hard, masculine, “reason” against what they perceive to be as feminine mystifications or unreason. And they don’t even need to understand anything they have categorized as unreason. It’s not important to do so. They dismiss it because at a deep level of their minds they have categorized it as womanly and irrelevant. (I’m thinking of the way Rebecca Watson has been attacked by ‘hardline” male pro-science types, for presenting her critique of evolutionary psychology. The respondents tone is definitely misogynist and dismissive).
So, yeah, that is the culture. It involves the internalization of a lot of religious precepts without realizing that this is what they are. I am currently asserting on Facebook that Rush Limbaugh is America’s “public intellectual”. I think he really epitomizes this tendency, and even otherwise smart people have elements of his ideology circulating in their veins!
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“What can we expect from the rest?”
The conservatives in North Carolina want to create an official state religion according to the Washington Post.
“Since Republicans swept the North Carolina state government, from the statehouse to the House and Senate, the tilt right has been unmistakable. But the latest move out of Raleigh has even a lot of die-hard conservatives shaking their heads. Two representatives from Rowan County have submitted a resolution that would give North Carolina, its counties and towns the right to establish an official religion.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/04/04/a-state-religion-whats-next-north-carolina-secession/
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If at least they invented a religion of their own instead of doing something that has been done a thousand times already. 🙂
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There’s a total disconnect (almost total, I guess) between being a religious Catholic and a cultural Catholic. Most “cradle” Catholics grow up immersed in the culture, which often has little or nothing to do with the actual doctrines. Cognitively, later, they reject the doctrines, but the culture is sort of embedded. I know a lot of Jews and Hindus who are the same way–a particular “religion” (really cultural group) by upgringing, without any real religious connection to it. The under-the-radar stuff is really hard to examine.
–J
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(oops. Upbringing.)
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“So upholding a faith stupidly and non-reflectively just because Mommy and Daddy told you to and you never grew up enough to question their right to impose a faith on you is better than consciously choosing your own worldview?”
According to Pat Robinson, miracles don’t happen in America because too many folks go to Ivy league schools and consciously choose their worldviews.
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What the guy says is literally right. Uneducated people are more likely to believe silly things. Educated people are less likely to take people like this funny fella seriously. Although if things continue as they do now, we will soon have the least educated people in the world around here.
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My experience is that those Catholics who were raised Catholic and reject the stupider Catholic Church doctrines are NOT “upholding a faith stupidly and non-reflectively just because Mommy and Daddy told you to”, I don’t know where you got that. What I see is people consciously choosing their own worldview without feeling they have to abandon the traditions they grew up with entirely in order to do so: rejecting the parts that are incredibly stupid (like not being allowed to use birth control or believing the Pope is infallible) while keeping the parts that are life-affirming (like eating fish every Friday during Lent–yummy seafood ahoy!).
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Yes, people are consciously choosing their own worldview which just happens to be the one Mommy and Daddy already chose for them. Please, we are trying to have a serious conversation here, not rationalize parent-pleasing.
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So, where’s the line between cultural assimilation and parent-pleasing?
J
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