Research on Belief in God

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

Figure it out for yourself. But, you know, the parable about the poor lady and the self-righteous rich giving to charity.

Look what is even more perverse than the Catholic Church as regards South America is a hegmonic US corporate capitalism and the absolute chaos and pilaging work it has rought in that hemisphere. But hey, as I said, just emancipate people's consciences with the bible and freedom and they won't need to worry about any of this, not least of all the by-now global order of wealth acquisition on the one hand, and the dissemination of abject poverty on the other it has caused. In this sense a certain current fetish for beheading certainly is here to stay as a result, at least for the foreseeable future. Mine was just a tacit acknowledgement of this in another thread.

Surly you've been listening to Pope Francis lately chap, no?

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean, but if you're saying that religion causes these poor people and others not to care about their miserable circumstances you're clearly wrong. I posted this article already, but I'll just keep on posting this article I guess; it shows the systematic contribution of missionaries to the development of the nations where they work.

http://www.academia.edu/2128659/The_Missionary_Roots_of_Liberal_Democracy

You can keep on saying, Christianity helps suppressing the poor and oppressed and name a few examples where that appears to be the case and I can keep on claiming that on the contrary Christianity has time and again helped the poor and promoted social justice and name a few examples of where that appears to be the case, but the above article provides a bit more substantial and systematic evidence and should be taken more serious than biased anti-Christian babble a la Marx and it should also be taken more serious than my biased pro Christian ranting.

No I didn't say that, although I could have brought up any number of instances in which this has been the case.

My point was that in light of the practices of an orthodox and hegemonic capitalism at work in the southern Americas, one hardly should place the blame today largely upon the Catholic Church. The bible babbling evangelists in ubercapitalist Northern America, in this sense, are the world's biggest hypocrites.

On your thesis that Christianity has "helped" the poor, no, it has taught that the condition of poverty is acceptable (according to the concept of a transcendental radical change of status: the last shall be first and the first shall be last), in so far as one's reward in heaven will be proportionally greater relative to the misery one had to endure in this life. Provided had one, of course, believed and lived in accordance with the divine precepts. For this reason Christianity has never done a thing about the condition of poverty per se, unless you consider charity to have really done anything longue duree for the poor. By contrast, Marxism taught that poverty is unacceptable and attempted to offer the poor a way out of their misery by attacking the root causes. This is a colossal difference, naturally.

The protestants brought civilization around the world. That's rich. You should read a tad bit more on the effects of so-called protestant democratization on the indigenous societies, for example slavery, territory expropriation, resourse exploitation and the devestation inflicted by this, and not only as an effect of European new-worlding programs of so called acculturation (as in Africa and South Asia). I'm not the one to be passing on this type of biased and triumphalist accademic rhetorical exercise.

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

2 Tim 3:16
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

In other words, the product of a long series of ecumenical councils. The very product you guys work with, but of divine origin there is absolutely nothing.

2 Pe 1:20-21
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

What is the logic in qouting scripture in this context?? If one believes that the bible is completely inspired by God and infallible, it adds nothing. If one believes that it was written by men seeking to convince people that their theology was the right path, it adds nothing.

Christianity of course is a Greco-Roman myth (the divine child born of a virgin in a grotto, within a pastoral and magical setting, who brings salvation to the world, was an all too familiar narrative in the Classical World) that accredited itself through the Hebraic messianic expectation (itself influenced by the typological and hermetic traditions, of which Hellenistic writings provide ample examples). Its de-acculturation began when this Greco-Roman origin was elided by the same Protestants who thought that a primordial, "uncorrupted" Christianity (which of course never existed) could be identified, for which the book becomes the only relevant source of "historical" truth in its regard.

The interesting thing is that such developments took place in a Western tradition that increasingly gave up the very typological and hermetic traditions upon which Christianity was conceived in Greco-Roman civilization, as rationalism and the exact sciences made such traditions obsolete. Consequently they couldn't even be perceived anymore in the nineteenth-century, at the moment when historians were seeking a history of "maximum truth" through documentary evidence that rationalism presupposed, which naturally was also applied (rather absurdly) by protestant biblical exegetes. From a history of maximum truth, the twentieth-century realized the documentary evidence could only supply historiography at best with a series of possible narratives, including the false one. Marc Bloch has analyzed this phenomenon deeply, for which we have finally arrived at a history of mental representation (Bloch's marvelous book on the thaumaturge kings of France is an example of this, but so too the racial laws of Nazi Germany and those of the southern US, for which a historical reality arises from an imaginary paradigm and the devastating effects it causes).

Taking the bible literally as proof of historical reality, is thus a puerile exercise in futility and the outcome of modern applied mental habits upon an ancient culture and domain to which they were completely antithetical. In short it tries to legitimize the imagined through a process of de-acculturation (of which the arts and “gnostic” interpretation formed its dorsal spine) and rationalization, which are of course ridiculous paths for finding a “truth” that by its very antique nature required the one while defied the other.

 

[Echoes]

Re: Re:

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean, but if you're saying that religion causes these poor people and others not to care about their miserable circumstances you're clearly wrong. I posted this article already, but I'll just keep on posting this article I guess; it shows the systematic contribution of missionaries to the development of the nations where they work.

http://www.academia.edu/2128659/The_Missionary_Roots_of_Liberal_Democracy

I haven't read the article but I'm not sure that bringing democracy to Africa, for instance, had been the best contribution by missionaries to said continent.

Missionaries - whether Catholics or Protestants - did great jobs to provide basic humanitarian needs against misery and all according to the message of the Gospel of course: dispensaries, schools, farms, sawmills, etc. This is undeniable.

But let me take an example that I've studied rather closely: Rwanda. Rwanda had been a racialist/tribalist monarchy for centuries. The dominant ethnic was Tutsi despite being a minority ethnic, 15% of the population. 85% were Hutu (and there's a third ethnic that nobody ever talks about: the Twa, some kind of pygmies: less than 1% of the population). So the German colonizers actually created a protectorate, keeping the monarchy in place. Belgium took over by 1916 (during WWI) and in the fifties, the local missionaries - The White Fathers - agreed with the secularist/atheistic Belgian government to promote democracy to Rwanda.
Of course, the Christian message is universal, as opposed to Jewish tribalism, so the Tutsi tribalism was unacceptable either, of course. One way or another, it should have gone.

We should bear in mind that democracy is the law of the number, the calculator law and a continent like Africa is still pretty much tribalist. Africans haven't been able to create nations like we in Europe (only exception being Morocco). So if you bring democracy to Africa, you only give the power to the majority ethnic. In Rwanda's case, it was the Hutus. So that happened in 1961. The Tutsis suffered persecutions for about 10 years when a military coup put General Habyarimana in power and under his iron fist, the inter-ethnic massacres stopped. However by 1990, the Tutsi refugees in Rwanda came back to take their revenge and that led to the terrible genocide that we've seen in 1994. Paul Kagame, the current Tutsi dictator, is related to the old monarchy. He's always been resentful towards the Church for siding with the Hutus against his family. He massacred a lot of priests (though in the meantime there had been Vatican II, so the priests are no longer priests).

So sometimes bringing democracy does not work. Actually, it's something that atheists are keen to do. Look at Bush's Iraq War. His rhetoric did sound atheistic.

Also as far as poverty is concerned, I insist we should distinguish it from misery. Poverty is a good thing. On the hand it's a duty to take the miserable out of misery. We should read Charles Péguy "De Jean Coste" (1902) to understand that. If we don't understand that, then you leave a situation in which there are only rich & poor, which is what atheistic liberals/Marxists - like the Italian poster here - want. The law of the jungle in a way, wild capitalism, the only objective in life being to acquire material wealth, comfort & pleasure.
I feel like I'm poor, don't ever want to get rich, it does not interest me (I don't live in luxury). But I'm not miserable because I can supply for my fundamental needs.

 

[frenchfry]

Re: Re:

...
Also as far as poverty is concerned, I insist we should distinguish it from misery. Poverty is a good thing. On the hand it's a duty to take the miserable out of misery.
...

Well hidden in a pile of anti-athiest drivel, this comment is interesting and deserves a close look. Imposing the developed nation's ideology (you are unhappy if you don't live like us with all of our material crap) seems to be doing more harm than good in nations that have up to now lived simply and in harmony with nature. "The Gods Must Be Crazy" always comes to mind when I think of this subject.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

That's a good post Echoes, I didn't reply last week because I was on a holiday.

I agree with the distinction between poverty and misery, I wasn't using my words very carefully I guess. I also agree that bringing our western political system into other cultures doesn't always work out well, which is clearly illustrated by all the failed democracies around the world. Indeed the specific article is also concerned with democracy, but the article sees things like education, political freedom et cetera as contributing to the 'liberal democracy', so hence the title, but for me I'm just interested in his research because it demonstrates systematically that missionaries have actually helped bringing about a lot of stuff that everybody thinks is good (like education, political freedom etc. ) in the countries where they worked, contrary to what some people in this thread seem to believe.

 

[Christian]

Re: God and Religion

Just finished reading "God is not great - How religion poisons everything" by Christopher Hitchens. Been meaning to read that one for a while, having watched a lot of his debates on youtube. But while reading it, I could not help but think that while Hitchens surely is a great and very knowledgeable writer, he is an even better speaker and debater. Since a lot of the content of his debates stems directly from his book, I often had the feeling of having heard it before, just delivered in a wittier, more poignant way. Some of his wit seems to get lost on the page, and I find his style to be somewhat rambling, and lacking structure at times. In that sense, I much prefered Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion".

Hitchens makes some interesting points though about the relationship between repression and perversion, which can be found in religion, be it concerning certain foods or sexuality. I also found it very interesting that he included some lesser known, and more "exotic" religions in his examples, because those seem to be often ignored in the debates in the western world. Furthermore, the part about the free thinkers in history and their difficult relationships with religious institutions was fascinating. Finally, an interesting detail that I was unaware of is the origin of the celebration of Hannukah, which seems to have been the alienation of Jews who had grown too fond of hellenic culture.

One cannot help but wonder what Mr. Hitchens would have had to say about ISIS and Charlie Hebdo, and a voice like his is missing terribly in these times!

 

[carton]

Couldn't vote, so I thought I should just post this:

While Hoogerland will be absent when the 2015 Tour’s second stages goes within 30 kilometres of his house, he knows that the weather conditions on the road to Zeeland could wreak havoc.

“If it’s windy, it’s going to be a very crazy stage.”

 

[Descender]

Re: Re:

So sometimes bringing democracy does not work. Actually, it's something that atheists are keen to do. Look at Bush's Iraq War. His rhetoric did sound atheistic.

What.

God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/06/bush.shtml

 

[jmdirt]

This is a political buzz in Idaho politics: Religious groups who protest against abortion, but only use faith healing (no docs/meds). So its not OK to terminate a first trimester fetus, but it is OK to let a six year old die of a treatable pathogen?!

 

[Jspear]

Re:

This is a political buzz in Idaho politics: Religious groups who protest against abortion, but only use faith healing (no docs/meds). So its not OK to terminate a first trimester fetus, but it is OK to let a six year old die of a treatable pathogen?!

Those groups are an embarrassment to Christianity.

 

[Echoes]

Re: God and Religion

What is an embarrassment to Christianity is that Christians feel embarrassed whatever the topic.

When an atheist attacks us, we should never bow before him. We should always strike back. We've had to internalize too many lies for décades and centuries. Now that's enough. Killing a fœtus is not good, period!

Incantation Healing is Pagan! A superstition from Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece among others. The Christian Revolution relayed by the Islamic Revolution swept that away and paved the way for modern medecine. That's history. Atheists always convey the same lies.

 

[rhubroma]

Re: God and Religion

What is an embarrassment to Christianity is that Christians feel embarrassed whatever the topic.

When an atheist attacks us, we should never bow before him. We should always strike back. We've had to internalize too many lies for décades and centuries. Now that's enough. Killing a fœtus is not good, period!

Incantation Healing is Pagan! A superstition from Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece among others. The Christian Revolution relayed by the Islamic Revolution swept that away and paved the way for modern medecine. That's history. Atheists always convey the same lies.

Where do you put exorcism, or transubstantiation? Sort of like defixiones and similar like antique incantations.

 

[Maxiton]

Re: God and Religion

What is an embarrassment to Christianity is that Christians feel embarrassed whatever the topic.

When an atheist attacks us, we should never bow before him. We should always strike back. We've had to internalize too many lies for décades and centuries. Now that's enough. Killing a fœtus is not good, period!

Incantation Healing is Pagan! A superstition from Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece among others. The Christian Revolution relayed by the Islamic Revolution swept that away and paved the way for modern medecine. That's history. Atheists always convey the same lies.

I read somewhere here that you no longer consider yourself conservative, because to do so would mean advocating things you can't condone; thus, I think you said, you now consider yourself, and quite proudly, a certified reactionary. I think this is wrong.

As a conservative you are free to draw a line in the sand at any point in time and refuse to budge one inch further. This is the very point and purpose of conservatism. You can draw the line with ancient Greece, if you want to.

Which reminds me, I said previously that yours is by far the most archly, classically conservative viewpoint I've ever encountered. I take that back. Nietzsche's viewpoint is the most conservative I've encountered. Yours is only a close second; but at least you're in good company.

What's wrong with Paganism?

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean, but if you're saying that religion causes these poor people and others not to care about their miserable circumstances you're clearly wrong. I posted this article already, but I'll just keep on posting this article I guess; it shows the systematic contribution of missionaries to the development of the nations where they work.

http://www.academia.edu/2128659/The_Missionary_Roots_of_Liberal_Democracy

I haven't read the article but I'm not sure that bringing democracy to Africa, for instance, had been the best contribution by missionaries to said continent.

Missionaries - whether Catholics or Protestants - did great jobs to provide basic humanitarian needs against misery and all according to the message of the Gospel of course: dispensaries, schools, farms, sawmills, etc. This is undeniable.

But let me take an example that I've studied rather closely: Rwanda. Rwanda had been a racialist/tribalist monarchy for centuries. The dominant ethnic was Tutsi despite being a minority ethnic, 15% of the population. 85% were Hutu (and there's a third ethnic that nobody ever talks about: the Twa, some kind of pygmies: less than 1% of the population). So the German colonizers actually created a protectorate, keeping the monarchy in place. Belgium took over by 1916 (during WWI) and in the fifties, the local missionaries - The White Fathers - agreed with the secularist/atheistic Belgian government to promote democracy to Rwanda.
Of course, the Christian message is universal, as opposed to Jewish tribalism, so the Tutsi tribalism was unacceptable either, of course. One way or another, it should have gone.

We should bear in mind that democracy is the law of the number, the calculator law and a continent like Africa is still pretty much tribalist. Africans haven't been able to create nations like we in Europe (only exception being Morocco). So if you bring democracy to Africa, you only give the power to the majority ethnic. In Rwanda's case, it was the Hutus. So that happened in 1961. The Tutsis suffered persecutions for about 10 years when a military coup put General Habyarimana in power and under his iron fist, the inter-ethnic massacres stopped. However by 1990, the Tutsi refugees in Rwanda came back to take their revenge and that led to the terrible genocide that we've seen in 1994. Paul Kagame, the current Tutsi dictator, is related to the old monarchy. He's always been resentful towards the Church for siding with the Hutus against his family. He massacred a lot of priests (though in the meantime there had been Vatican II, so the priests are no longer priests).

So sometimes bringing democracy does not work. Actually, it's something that atheists are keen to do. Look at Bush's Iraq War. His rhetoric did sound atheistic.

Also as far as poverty is concerned, I insist we should distinguish it from misery. Poverty is a good thing. On the hand it's a duty to take the miserable out of misery. We should read Charles Péguy "De Jean Coste" (1902) to understand that. If we don't understand that, then you leave a situation in which there are only rich & poor, which is what atheistic liberals/Marxists - like the Italian poster here - want. The law of the jungle in a way, wild capitalism, the only objective in life being to acquire material wealth, comfort & pleasure.
I feel like I'm poor, don't ever want to get rich, it does not interest me (I don't live in luxury). But I'm not miserable because I can supply for my fundamental needs.

Besides being an apology for exploitation, the issue is one of currently accepted states of being and the models of way of life this presupposes.

Now, it's obvious that the Eurpean commercial interests weren't driven by "divine cause," however, the iter of materialism has had poignant hickups, such as the whole "primitivist" movement in European arts from Gaugain to Picasso and the entire cycle of multicultural contemporary art.

Now that hickup is beckoning. The world is a small place? Indeed. Promiscuity is the wave of the future.

 

[Echoes]

Re: God and Religion

Which reminds me, I said previously that yours is by far the most archly, classically conservative viewpoint I've ever encountered. I take that back. Nietzsche's viewpoint is the most conservative I've encountered. Yours is only a close second; but at least you're in good company.

What's wrong with Paganism?

Damn, I can't stand Nietzsche.

On my post above, I did not claimed that Paganism was wrong, just showed that the atheistic posters above played on a misconception of Christianity and confusion between Christianity and Paganism.

However, my beef on the different Pagan cultures is that they were mostly driven by tribalism (which basically means racism), whether it be Rome, Athens, Persia but also Judaism. All pre-Christian traditions. Each of them had invented their own gods which are basically mascots, representing their own tribes/nations, while for Christianism as well as for Islam, there's only one God and he is UNIVERSAL, because He created the whole universe. Hence the outrageous lie by dishonest atheists like the poster above this post who obstinately claim that Christians are racists while Christians, just like Muslims have always combatted racism: Heaven is open to every races/ethnics.
In all Pagan cultures, the Temporal and the Spiritual are blended. Mythology "then commanded the State and appointed its leaders via the lot and the augurs ; the State in turn interfered into the realm of the conscience and sanctioned any offense to rituals and to the cult of the city" (says Numa-Denys Fustel de Coulanges in "The Ancient City", 1864). Instead, Christianism and Islam distinguished between the Temporal & the Spiritual, whereby politics, the defence of national interests had nothing to do with religion anymore. Neither could superstition explain how the universe works. In Ancient Greece, after a bad crop, a peasant needed to give an offering to Demeter and that was meant to work. Christianism stopped that. Offerings to God stopped with Jesus. Jesus was meant to be the Last Lamb sacrificed for God, the Mystic Lamb. That's why some would claim that Jesus was a vegetarian/vegan (while atheists still claim that religions are essentially cruel towards animals, liars!).

It's no wonder that most dictators of the 1920's have been interested in Paganism because Paganism is definitely an inspiration for nationalism. Christianity and Islam go beyond nations. They claim that nations are illusions. A modern-day assumed Fascist such as Gabriele Adinolfi is opposed to Christianity because like every religion, Christianism is "internationalist" (sic). He constantly sees Jesuit conspiracy everywhere.

Besides, of course, Paganism is often linked with superstition (which is condemned by Christianity and by Islam). You may see that in the first 10 minutes of the film "The Message", a very useful film since it's the only one about the Prophet Muhammad - Peace be upon him. You can see how merchants make a business out of the people's fears and they mock Muslims for believing in a God that they cannot see (just like present-day atheists). The aniconic nature of Islam, the interdiction of any representation of the Prophet - pbuh -, is also an intelligent measure decided by the scholars of Islam in order to prevent any kind of idolatry, which in their opinion, Christians had fallen into. Of course, the idiots of Charlie Hebdo are too dumb to understand that.

 

[jmdirt]

Re: God and Religion

Which reminds me, I said previously that yours is by far the most archly, classically conservative viewpoint I've ever encountered. I take that back. Nietzsche's viewpoint is the most conservative I've encountered. Yours is only a close second; but at least you're in good company.

What's wrong with Paganism?

Damn, I can't stand Nietzsche.

On my post above, I did not claimed that Paganism was wrong, just showed that the atheistic posters above played on a misconception of Christianity and confusion between Christianity and Paganism.

However, my beef on the different Pagan cultures is that they were mostly driven by tribalism (which basically means racism), whether it be Rome, Athens, Persia but also Judaism. All pre-Christian traditions. Each of them had invented their own gods which are basically mascots, representing their own tribes/nations, while for Christianism as well as for Islam, there's only one God and he is UNIVERSAL, because He created the whole universe. Hence the outrageous lie by dishonest atheists like the poster above this post who obstinately claim that Christians are racists while Christians, just like Muslims have always combatted racism: Heaven is open to every races/ethnics.
In all Pagan cultures, the Temporal and the Spiritual are blended. Mythology "then commanded the State and appointed its leaders via the lot and the augurs ; the State in turn interfered into the realm of the conscience and sanctioned any offense to rituals and to the cult of the city" (says Numa-Denys Fustel de Coulanges in "The Ancient City", 1864). Instead, Christianism and Islam distinguished between the Temporal & the Spiritual, whereby politics, the defence of national interests had nothing to do with religion anymore. Neither could superstition explain how the universe works. In Ancient Greece, after a bad crop, a peasant needed to give an offering to Demeter and that was meant to work. Christianism stopped that. Offerings to God stopped with Jesus. Jesus was meant to be the Last Lamb sacrificed for God, the Mystic Lamb. That's why some would claim that Jesus was a vegetarian/vegan (while atheists still claim that religions are essentially cruel towards animals, liars!).

It's no wonder that most dictators of the 1920's have been interested in Paganism because Paganism is definitely an inspiration for nationalism. Christianity and Islam go beyond nations. They claim that nations are illusions. A modern-day assumed Fascist such as Gabriele Adinolfi is opposed to Christianity because like every religion, Christianism is "internationalist" (sic). He constantly sees Jesuit conspiracy everywhere.

Besides, of course, Paganism is often linked with superstition (which is condemned by Christianity and by Islam). You may see that in the first 10 minutes of the film "The Message", a very useful film since it's the only one about the Prophet Muhammad - Peace be upon him. You can see how merchants make a business out of the people's fears and they mock Muslims for believing in a God that they cannot see (just like present-day atheists). The aniconic nature of Islam, the interdiction of any representation of the Prophet - pbuh -, is also an intelligent measure decided by the scholars of Islam in order to prevent any kind of idolatry, which in their opinion, Christians had fallen into. Of course, the idiots of Charlie Hebdo are too dumb to understand that.

So, all of the raciest christians are actually christian pagans?

 

[Maxiton]

Re: God and Religion

Which reminds me, I said previously that yours is by far the most archly, classically conservative viewpoint I've ever encountered. I take that back. Nietzsche's viewpoint is the most conservative I've encountered. Yours is only a close second; but at least you're in good company.

What's wrong with Paganism?

Damn, I can't stand Nietzsche.

On my post above, I did not claimed that Paganism was wrong, just showed that the atheistic posters above played on a misconception of Christianity and confusion between Christianity and Paganism.

However, my beef on the different Pagan cultures is that they were mostly driven by tribalism (which basically means racism), whether it be Rome, Athens, Persia but also Judaism. All pre-Christian traditions. Each of them had invented their own gods which are basically mascots, representing their own tribes/nations, while for Christianism as well as for Islam, there's only one God and he is UNIVERSAL, because He created the whole universe. Hence the outrageous lie by dishonest atheists like the poster above this post who obstinately claim that Christians are racists while Christians, just like Muslims have always combatted racism: Heaven is open to every races/ethnics.
In all Pagan cultures, the Temporal and the Spiritual are blended. Mythology "then commanded the State and appointed its leaders via the lot and the augurs ; the State in turn interfered into the realm of the conscience and sanctioned any offense to rituals and to the cult of the city" (says Numa-Denys Fustel de Coulanges in "The Ancient City", 1864). Instead, Christianism and Islam distinguished between the Temporal & the Spiritual, whereby politics, the defence of national interests had nothing to do with religion anymore. Neither could superstition explain how the universe works. In Ancient Greece, after a bad crop, a peasant needed to give an offering to Demeter and that was meant to work. Christianism stopped that. Offerings to God stopped with Jesus. Jesus was meant to be the Last Lamb sacrificed for God, the Mystic Lamb. That's why some would claim that Jesus was a vegetarian/vegan (while atheists still claim that religions are essentially cruel towards animals, liars!).

It's no wonder that most dictators of the 1920's have been interested in Paganism because Paganism is definitely an inspiration for nationalism. Christianity and Islam go beyond nations. They claim that nations are illusions. A modern-day assumed Fascist such as Gabriele Adinolfi is opposed to Christianity because like every religion, Christianism is "internationalist" (sic). He constantly sees Jesuit conspiracy everywhere.

Besides, of course, Paganism is often linked with superstition (which is condemned by Christianity and by Islam). You may see that in the first 10 minutes of the film "The Message", a very useful film since it's the only one about the Prophet Muhammad - Peace be upon him. You can see how merchants make a business out of the people's fears and they mock Muslims for believing in a God that they cannot see (just like present-day atheists). The aniconic nature of Islam, the interdiction of any representation of the Prophet - pbuh -, is also an intelligent measure decided by the scholars of Islam in order to prevent any kind of idolatry, which in their opinion, Christians had fallen into. Of course, the idiots of Charlie Hebdo are too dumb to understand that.

Thanks for that. Very interesting. I should probably start by correcting myself. I meant to lead in to mention of Nietzsche with my statement about drawing a line in the sand of history at any point, and then pointed to ancient Greece. I should have pointed to Imperial Rome instead, as I think Nietzsche would be first to say that ancient Greece can only be seen through the eyes of ancient Rome, and it was at the feet of imperial Rome that he found so much solace and inspiration. And of course we know how hostile he was to democracy.

You may hate Nietzsche but in maintaining your stance as one devoted to conservatism you find yourself in his company. He actually leads the charge. It's just that many don't recognize his conservatism, in part because the left has tried to re-direct his influence in a misguided attempt to co-opt him; but in equal part because he is so very conservative that he almost turns 180 degrees, questioning received wisdom in its near-entirety and rejecting all of the modern world, beginning with the Christianity of Paul.

You may credit Christianity with the separation of church and state, but what about those popes who were themselves heads of state, with their own armies and their own military campaigns? I'm well aware of the organic tie-in of Paganism and Fascism, but what about Great Britain, where no separation of church and state has ever existed? What about Imperial Russia? Or for that matter all the monarchs and potentates of Europe, whose authority is predicated on no such separation? And, lastly, in modern times, what of Francisco Franco in Spain and António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, both of whom led authoritarian, fascist dictatorships that had the church as their cornerstone (indeed, they both made it a legal requirement to attend mass on Sunday).

I notice you several times mention Christianity and Islam as the sole exemplars of a universal creator, but I see no mention of Judaism. Why? Seems like an odd thing to leave out.

Also, many Hindu religious scholars maintain that Hinduism is actually monotheistic; they justify this by saying that the one true God is unknowable and unsayable in its entirety, and thus all the many Hindu gods merely represent some of the infinite facets of God that are knowable, or at least sayable. (Conversely, some Protestants would say that Catholicism is not properly monotheistic because of all the many saints and other god-figures in its cosmology, that its adherents pray to in hope of intercession with God.) And then of course there is Daoism, for which the Dao and God are one in the same.

I won't even bother to put forth the argument that Christianity did not arrive on earth whole cloth, as it were, but rather developed or coalesced over a long period of time from pre-Christian, pre-Judaic, Pagan beliefs. Because such an argument would be materialist and I know you're not one.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean, but if you're saying that religion causes these poor people and others not to care about their miserable circumstances you're clearly wrong. I posted this article already, but I'll just keep on posting this article I guess; it shows the systematic contribution of missionaries to the development of the nations where they work.

http://www.academia.edu/2128659/The_Missionary_Roots_of_Liberal_Democracy

I haven't read the article but I'm not sure that bringing democracy to Africa, for instance, had been the best contribution by missionaries to said continent.

Missionaries - whether Catholics or Protestants - did great jobs to provide basic humanitarian needs against misery and all according to the message of the Gospel of course: dispensaries, schools, farms, sawmills, etc. This is undeniable.

But let me take an example that I've studied rather closely: Rwanda. Rwanda had been a racialist/tribalist monarchy for centuries. The dominant ethnic was Tutsi despite being a minority ethnic, 15% of the population. 85% were Hutu (and there's a third ethnic that nobody ever talks about: the Twa, some kind of pygmies: less than 1% of the population). So the German colonizers actually created a protectorate, keeping the monarchy in place. Belgium took over by 1916 (during WWI) and in the fifties, the local missionaries - The White Fathers - agreed with the secularist/atheistic Belgian government to promote democracy to Rwanda.
Of course, the Christian message is universal, as opposed to Jewish tribalism, so the Tutsi tribalism was unacceptable either, of course. One way or another, it should have gone.

Please explain how the Belgian government was "atheist". Secular? Sure. Belgium had as part of its constitution or laws that Belgium was an "atheist" state? I am not aware this is the case. One cannot conflate secularism, under which religion flourishes, with an atheist state as seen under Marxist-Leninist states which had atheism as official policies.

We should bear in mind that democracy is the law of the number, the calculator law and a continent like Africa is still pretty much tribalist. Africans haven't been able to create nations like we in Europe (only exception being Morocco). So if you bring democracy to Africa, you only give the power to the majority ethnic. In Rwanda's case, it was the Hutus. So that happened in 1961. The Tutsis suffered persecutions for about 10 years when a military coup put General Habyarimana in power and under his iron fist, the inter-ethnic massacres stopped. However by 1990, the Tutsi refugees in Rwanda came back to take their revenge and that led to the terrible genocide that we've seen in 1994. Paul Kagame, the current Tutsi dictator, is related to the old monarchy. He's always been resentful towards the Church for siding with the Hutus against his family. He massacred a lot of priests (though in the meantime there had been Vatican II, so the priests are no longer priests).

So sometimes bringing democracy does not work. Actually, it's something that atheists are keen to do. Look at Bush's Iraq War. His rhetoric did sound atheistic.

You have to be kidding.

President George W. Bush told a group of conservative journalists on September 12, 2006, that "he senses a 'Third Awakening' of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists," Peter Baker reported in the Washington Post. It is a war, Bush said, that a "lot of people in America see ... as a confrontation between good and evil, including me."\

Bush was a theocrat in his ideology, thankfully working within the confines of a secular state, the evidence being so extensive as to not bother further listing it here. His rhetoric was constantly laced with theocratic themes, particularly in relation to his reasons for that war. To call it atheistic is (of course) completely at odds with the truth.

Also as far as poverty is concerned, I insist we should distinguish it from misery. Poverty is a good thing. On the hand it's a duty to take the miserable out of misery. We should read Charles Péguy "De Jean Coste" (1902) to understand that. If we don't understand that, then you leave a situation in which there are only rich & poor, which is what atheistic liberals/Marxists - like the Italian poster here - want. The law of the jungle in a way, wild capitalism, the only objective in life being to acquire material wealth, comfort & pleasure.
I feel like I'm poor, don't ever want to get rich, it does not interest me (I don't live in luxury). But I'm not miserable because I can supply for my fundamental needs.

So again, some reasonable recapping of actual history, inevitably and unfortunately twisted with a false, agenda-driven re-writing of the facts. Within each good lie is contained some kernels of truth.

You make your analysis dependent on the falsehoods. The falsehoods are required to promote your agenda, as the agenda isn't supported by facts. As such the analysis fails completely.

 

[ray j willings]

There is No fu%%king excuse to let some people suffer in such terrible ways.
If God does exist and he lets these things happen he's a c$$$.

 

[rhubroma]

Echoes writes from a bias of what he thinks "true" religion is, while he totally discounts the process of acculturation Christianity experienced through the converted pagans. Indeed without that process, orthodoxy, as it came to regard itself, would be totally unrecognizable. The decisive clash between Christianity and paganism, thus only apparently came with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. Prior to that Emperor Constantine was devoted to Sol, the Sun he hailed as his tutelary god in 311 and who he persistantly portrayed on his coinage as his invincible companion('SOLI INVICTO COMITI'), even after his famous vision of the Christogram. Some of Constantine's troops were called solenses and this connection with the Sun made the emperor's eventual transition (the proper term for it) to Christianity easier, because he believed that Christ and the Unconquered Sun-god were both aspects of the Highest Divinity, and that no mutual exclusiveness existed between them or separated them.

Indeed he was not, and had not been, the only man to make this view, which, with the assistance of Neoplatonism, alloted the solar religion a sort of middle ground between paganism of Christianity. Plotinus's notion of the One best expressed this. Old Testament prophecy was interpreted as identifying the 'Sun of Righteousness' with Jesus Christ, who was often called Sol Justitiae and depicted by statues resembling the young Apollo or Sol. Clement of Alexandria writes of Christ driving his chariot across the sky, which is just as he is depicted in the third century Tomb of the Julii in the Vatican necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. Moreover, Sol remained a Christian symbol and on the coin of Vetranio (ca.350) with a Christian symbol Sol Invictus (whose birthday was the dies natalis solis invicti on Dec. 25) crowns the Christian standard, the labarum.

And once Christianity became the religion of the state in 380, it very much got bogged down in the morass of temporal affairs, including the ruthless persecution of so-called heretics.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Echoes writes from a bias of what he thinks "true" religion is, while he totally discounts the process of acculturation Christianity experienced by the converted pagans. Indeed without that process, orthodoxy, as it came to regard itself, would be totally unrecognizable. The decisve clash between Christianity and paganism, thus only apparently came with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. Prior to that Emperor Constantine was devoted to Sol, the Sun he hailed as his tutelary god in 311 and who he persistantly portrayed on his coinage as his invincible companion('SOLI INVICTO COMITI'), even after his famous vision of the Christogram. Some of Constantine's troops were called solenses and this connection with the Sun made the emperor's eventual transition (the proper term for it) to Christianity easier, because he believed that Christ and the Unconquered Sun-god were bothe aspects of the Highest Divinity, and that no mutual exclusiveness existed between them or separated them.

Indeed he was not, and had not been, the only man to make this view, which, with the assistance of Neoplatonism, alloted the solar religion a sort of middle ground between paganism of Christianity. Plotina's notion of the One best expressed this. Old Testament prophecy was interpreted as identifying the 'Sun of Righteousness' with Jesus Christ, who was often called Sol Justitiae and depicted by statues resembling the young Apollo or Sol. Clement of Alexandria writes of Christ driving his chariot across the sky, which is just as he is depicted in the third century Tomb of the Julii in the Vatican necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. Moreover, Sol remained a Christian symbol and on the coin of Vetranio (ca.350) with a Christian symbol Sol Invictus (whose birthday was the dies natalis solis invicti on Dec. 25) crowns the Christian standard, the labarum.

And once Christianity became the religion of the state in 380, it very much got bogged down in the morass of temporal affairs, including the ruthless persecution of so-called heretics.

Your historical knowledge is clearly impressive, but personally I can't follow how that's connected to the stuff I read, except in the deepest recesses of historical context.

What I see is a continuous stream posts which seem to hinge upon labels for certain peoples or institutions, which are almost invariably wrong or misleading, as are the conclusions (inevitably) which rely on those labels. Zionists, Monarchists, Atheists, etc. get tossed around with little or no regard for the actual or historical meaning of the words. Not to mention the hazards to truth of lumping such large groups of people, institutions and historical movements into such simplistic and loaded terms. There is an attempt to frame current events into a fantastic historical context which depends on an admittedly broad knowledge of historical fact, but it's invariably compromised by peppering that historical perspective with wild inaccuracies and conclusions. It assumes a general ignorance of history by the reader, so that the falsehoods can be argued from a position of historical "authority". Dangerous and manipulative stuff IMO.

It all reads as a series of posts intended to re-frame history into a certain religious perspective (what exactly it is I can't fathom) which appears to hold no water due to the reliance upon twisting the meaning and context of the labels and philosophies contained in the discussion. Or any factual reading of history.

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

Echoes writes from a bias of what he thinks "true" religion is, while he totally discounts the process of acculturation Christianity experienced by the converted pagans. Indeed without that process, orthodoxy, as it came to regard itself, would be totally unrecognizable. The decisve clash between Christianity and paganism, thus only apparently came with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. Prior to that Emperor Constantine was devoted to Sol, the Sun he hailed as his tutelary god in 311 and who he persistantly portrayed on his coinage as his invincible companion('SOLI INVICTO COMITI'), even after his famous vision of the Christogram. Some of Constantine's troops were called solenses and this connection with the Sun made the emperor's eventual transition (the proper term for it) to Christianity easier, because he believed that Christ and the Unconquered Sun-god were bothe aspects of the Highest Divinity, and that no mutual exclusiveness existed between them or separated them.

Indeed he was not, and had not been, the only man to make this view, which, with the assistance of Neoplatonism, alloted the solar religion a sort of middle ground between paganism of Christianity. Plotina's notion of the One best expressed this. Old Testament prophecy was interpreted as identifying the 'Sun of Righteousness' with Jesus Christ, who was often called Sol Justitiae and depicted by statues resembling the young Apollo or Sol. Clement of Alexandria writes of Christ driving his chariot across the sky, which is just as he is depicted in the third century Tomb of the Julii in the Vatican necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. Moreover, Sol remained a Christian symbol and on the coin of Vetranio (ca.350) with a Christian symbol Sol Invictus (whose birthday was the dies natalis solis invicti on Dec. 25) crowns the Christian standard, the labarum.

And once Christianity became the religion of the state in 380, it very much got bogged down in the morass of temporal affairs, including the ruthless persecution of so-called heretics.

Your historical knowledge is clearly impressive, but personally I can't follow how that's connected to the stuff I read, except in the deepest recesses of historical context.

What I see is a continuous stream posts which seem to hinge upon labels for certain peoples or institutions, which are almost invariably wrong or misleading, as are the conclusions (inevitably) which rely on those labels. Zionists, Monarchists, Atheists, etc. get tossed around with little or no regard for the actual or historical meaning of the words. Not to mention the hazards to truth of lumping such large groups of people, institutions and historical movements into such simplistic and loaded terms. There is an attempt to frame current events into a fantastic historical context which depends on an admittedly broad knowledge of historical fact, but it's invariably compromised by peppering that historical perspective with wild inaccuracies and conclusions. It assumes a general ignorance of history by the reader, so that the falsehoods can be argued from a position of historical "authority". Dangerous and manipulative stuff IMO.

It all reads as a series of posts intended to re-frame history into a certain religious perspective (what exactly it is I can't fathom) which appears to hold no water due to the reliance upon twisting the meaning and context of the labels and philosophies contained in the discussion. Or any factual reading of history.

I'm not sure I get what you mean. If you are trying to say I give a false reading of history, when I treat religion as a human phenomenon, then I couldn't disagree with you more.

The problem is that only within the deep recesses of historical context can we approach religion without prejudice or superstition. That is, only from the detatched lense of rational historical analysis can we approach religion objectively.

We avoid thus precisely what has been contrived by the writers of religion against what they regarded as the tantam falsitatam congeriem (the "many falsities" that Fulgentius accused Apuleius of commenting on the later's the Golden A$$) of those they considered to be ignorant of Truth.

 

[Maxiton]

Re: Re:

Echoes writes from a bias of what he thinks "true" religion is, while he totally discounts the process of acculturation Christianity experienced by the converted pagans. Indeed without that process, orthodoxy, as it came to regard itself, would be totally unrecognizable. The decisve clash between Christianity and paganism, thus only apparently came with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. Prior to that Emperor Constantine was devoted to Sol, the Sun he hailed as his tutelary god in 311 and who he persistantly portrayed on his coinage as his invincible companion('SOLI INVICTO COMITI'), even after his famous vision of the Christogram. Some of Constantine's troops were called solenses and this connection with the Sun made the emperor's eventual transition (the proper term for it) to Christianity easier, because he believed that Christ and the Unconquered Sun-god were bothe aspects of the Highest Divinity, and that no mutual exclusiveness existed between them or separated them.

Indeed he was not, and had not been, the only man to make this view, which, with the assistance of Neoplatonism, alloted the solar religion a sort of middle ground between paganism of Christianity. Plotina's notion of the One best expressed this. Old Testament prophecy was interpreted as identifying the 'Sun of Righteousness' with Jesus Christ, who was often called Sol Justitiae and depicted by statues resembling the young Apollo or Sol. Clement of Alexandria writes of Christ driving his chariot across the sky, which is just as he is depicted in the third century Tomb of the Julii in the Vatican necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. Moreover, Sol remained a Christian symbol and on the coin of Vetranio (ca.350) with a Christian symbol Sol Invictus (whose birthday was the dies natalis solis invicti on Dec. 25) crowns the Christian standard, the labarum.

And once Christianity became the religion of the state in 380, it very much got bogged down in the morass of temporal affairs, including the ruthless persecution of so-called heretics.

Your historical knowledge is clearly impressive, but personally I can't follow how that's connected to the stuff I read, except in the deepest recesses of historical context.

What I see is a continuous stream posts which seem to hinge upon labels for certain peoples or institutions, which are almost invariably wrong or misleading, as are the conclusions (inevitably) which rely on those labels. Zionists, Monarchists, Atheists, etc. get tossed around with little or no regard for the actual or historical meaning of the words. Not to mention the hazards to truth of lumping such large groups of people, institutions and historical movements into such simplistic and loaded terms. There is an attempt to frame current events into a fantastic historical context which depends on an admittedly broad knowledge of historical fact, but it's invariably compromised by peppering that historical perspective with wild inaccuracies and conclusions. It assumes a general ignorance of history by the reader, so that the falsehoods can be argued from a position of historical "authority". Dangerous and manipulative stuff IMO.

It all reads as a series of posts intended to re-frame history into a certain religious perspective (what exactly it is I can't fathom) which appears to hold no water due to the reliance upon twisting the meaning and context of the labels and philosophies contained in the discussion. Or any factual reading of history.

I'm not sure I get what you mean. If you are trying to say I give a false reading of history, when I treat religion as a human phenomenon, then I couldn't disagree with you more.

The problem is that only within the deep recesses of historical context can we approach religion without prejudice or superstition. That is, only from the detatched lense of rational historical analysis can we approach religion objectively.

We avoid thus precisely what has been contrived by the writers of religion against what they regarded as the tantam falsitatam congeriem (the "many falsities" that Fulgentius accused Apuleius of commenting on the later's the Golden A$$) of those they considered to be ignorant of Truth.

Red Flanders can correct me if I'm wrong but it's my impression that he was saying he couldn't see how your erudite postings are connected to those of Echoes, which, he goes on to say, are "a series of posts intended to re-frame history into a certain religious perspective".

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

Red Flanders can correct me if I'm wrong but it's my impression that he was saying he couldn't see how your erudite postings are connected to those of Echoes, which, he goes on to say, are "a series of posts intended to re-frame history into a certain religious perspective".

You are correct. Sorry for the misunderstanding, my post was not well-written.

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

Red Flanders can correct me if I'm wrong but it's my impression that he was saying he couldn't see how your erudite postings are connected to those of Echoes, which, he goes on to say, are "a series of posts intended to re-frame history into a certain religious perspective".

You are correct. Sorry for the misunderstanding, my post was not well-written.

No, it was very well written and sums up Echoes wild fantasies with considerable discernment. I just couldn't initially tell if you meant moi or Echoes.

Mind you, you are dealing with an admitted reactionary of a sect that wants the world to go back to not only pre Vatican II, but pre 1492.