Why Do Most Religious Conservatives Support Capitalist Ideology?

I wonder why religious conservatives are mostly synonymous with capitalism supporters ? I mean arent most religions inherently socialistic ? What makes conservatives support capitalism , despite not being among the rich?

Asked a redditor on lemmy, which is the new reddit.

https://old.thelemmy.club/post/1302560

I normally avoid politics as being mostly kayfabe, but the same thought has occasionally occurred to me, so I had this answer ready:

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I can't answer for America, but generally in democracies you get two and only two parties. Anyone taking a middle position cripples the side they're closest to.

Before Socialism was a thing, England had 'Liberals/Whigs' (what yanks would call libertarians, because they've somehow managed to repurpose the word liberal to mean the opposite of what it means) and 'Conservatives/Tories' (king and country and church and don't change things because you'll break them and hurt people).

And of course, like all political groups do, they hated each other.

The Church of England was once known as the Tory Party at Prayer. The Liberals were the radicals, the party of industry and progress and free markets and who cares who it hurts as long as it's the future.

With the rise of socialism/fascism/anarchism/progressivism, a truly radical program to rebuild society on utopian lines and use totalitarian terror to enable even more freedom and progress and human happiness, represented in England by the Labour Party, the 'conservatives' and 'liberals' were squeezed, and combined to oppose socialist thought, which hated them both and wanted to destroy everything they thought was worthwhile in the world.

So there came to pass an uneasy alliance in England between classical liberals and religious loonies, who'd naturally detest each other.

That's the modern Conservative party, who want to use radical social transformation to go back to the glorious past, and are very much in favour of freedom of speech and thought as long as it's the sort of speech and thought that they approve of.

The Liberal Party effectively ceased to exist, because in its radicalism and desire for progress, it was more sympathetic to socialist thought, and so it got crushed.

Socialism has rather collapsed as an idea after an hundred years of practical experience with utopia, leaving Labour as the party of 'every problem can be solved by stealing more money and spending it on subsidies'. A position which is popular with those who benefit from subsidy, and unpopular with those who get their stuff stolen.

And of course, few of the people in either party actually believe in the causes they publicly espouse. They're not stupid. But public communications have to be simple-minded and rally tribal support.

Obviously this is a terrible system, but it's better than regular civil war, which is what you get in all other systems of government.

I Don't Know What to Believe Any More

(in answer to a redditor confused about the seed-oil hypothesis)

You shouldn't believe things at all. There are lots of different ideas, any of which might be true.

You should develop the ability to hold them all in your head at the same time, and shift the weight of your belief according to the evidence you see.

Think less about modern religion, with its "one truth and you burn if you get it wrong", and more about the ancient Romans, patiently trying out all the gods and rituals they found to see which ones actually worked.

Epidemiological studies are evidence, but not terribly good evidence.

Randomized double-blind placebo controlled trials are good evidence, but you need to work out what it is they actually tested!

Self-experiments are gold dust, but watch out, it's easy to fool yourself.

Anecdotes from other people are evidence, but watch out for motivated thinking, and remember that not everyone works the same way, which is one of the reasons medical "science" is so very hard.

Evolutionary reasoning, and biochemical theory are good evidence, but it's hard to work out the implications of either for all sorts of reasons.

This is all very difficult and murky. If it was straightforward we would already know the answers.

But whatever you currently believe, what you should first do is look for evidence against it, until you aren't so sure any more!

People who don’t reply until days later, why?

 

From AskReddit : People who don’t reply until days later, why?

I get asked this all the time, so here's my answer in written form for those who like that sort of thing!