Religion of peace

[dsayers]

I have a patriotic view of Christianity

That's exactly what I said. You have an opinion that you choose to hold even after receiving data to the contrary. Bigotry. The word patriotic is incompatible with words like empirical.

[Donnadogsoth]

no, you dont get to claim 1 thing for islam, and then dodge the same thing for christianity. You dont get to go its islam when islam is violent, but its countries when christians fight.

 

Indeed I do, neeeel.  Modern "Christian" America is not acting as a Christian country but just as a country.  Its national character is coloured by Christianity but no longer in any meaningful sense controlled by it.  Look up "Neoconservatives" if you wish to refer to the policy makers of the "Christian" America of George W. Bush.

 

The Christendom of the Crusades, on the other hand, was acting as a confederation of Christian countries.

 

And beyond this, Islam doesn't need countries to do its black work.  Terrorist networks may be financed by Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, but they aren't controlled by them.  Neither are the hordes of Moslem immigrants controlled by Islamic countries, but they will have their way with the supine and unprotesting West all the same.

That's exactly what I said. You have an opinion that you choose to hold even after receiving data to the contrary. Bigotry. The word patriotic is incompatible with words like empirical.

 

"Patriot" implies one has fallen, rightly or wrongly, in love with the monad in question. Are all the love-struck, bigots? Bigot implies unreasoning and hateful adherence to a monad. It is a common slander. Yet, not all bigots are patriots, and not all patriots are bigots. What word is there for he who has through reason and intuition achieved patriotism? I submit "admirer." As Stefan puts it, love is the involuntary response to virtue.

[shirgall]

Well, that's something, but did it go anywhere?  Did it influence Western civilisation the way Genesis of the Jews did, or the way the republic of Solon did?

 

Your assertion was that Christianity invented democracy and rights, and I provided counterexamples. Your other questions are not relevant to that.

[J. D. Stembal]

A truly Christian country would fight only in self-defense, and not aggression.  Why shouldn't Christian countries defend themselves from Islam and other aggressors?

 

Are you aware that religions and nations are abstract concepts that do not exist?

[dsayers]

What word is there for he who has through reason and intuition achieved patriotism? I submit "admirer." As Stefan puts it, love is the involuntary response to virtue.

Poisoned question. Reason and intuition are not compatible. Devotion to dirt is not a rational conclusion. Love is not something one can have towards inanimate objects or concepts.

[Troubador]

Donnadogsoth bearing in mind I, like you have belief in the

Divine what specifically should make me subscribe to the particular religion you espouse? As far as religious institutions go whenever people congregate in such a manner that centralises power and influence it attracts the corrupt.

 

A religion of peace should be peaceful. If it's not then it's not a religion of peace. I also think conflating every Christian denominations and cherry picking all the good things whilst ignoring the bad is being intellectually dishonest. Quakers for example campaigned to end slavery in the British Empire, but on the other hand slavery was justified by many others predicated on the story of Noah.

 

In short I am of the conviction that religious institutions more often than not actually get in the way of unity with all that monad stuff you were talking about earlier. If you have faith have it by all means, but not at the expense of anyone else's freedom. If you cannot find unity with your fellow human beings you are hardly going to be able to find it with God.

[Anuojat]

A simple test is all thats needed. Do not try to influence children towards religion (but rather reason, evidence and logic) and we shall see if there indeed is any validity to it. Oh wait... we have already done that and it doesnt work.

 

If it has to be taugh to children despite any evidence then it is WRONG. And not only is it wrong it is equally damaging as public shcool since to the children nto only is it presented as the truth but even in milder cases, children perceive theyre parents beliefs as subtle influences as the truth (for various reasons).

 

Same for islam, same for christianity and so on... and the more subtle or seemingly "peaceful" indoctirnation it is the more it can seem like something natural that jsut comes to children universally. Which is ihghly dangerous because then parents faith will be hightened and blind spots and curiousity plugged out of the mind.

 

And most important of all, the adult parent or adult will have the same level of subtlelty in theyre thinking. Same lack of curiousity in being wrong.

[Donnadogsoth]

Your assertion was that Christianity invented democracy and rights, and I provided counterexamples. Your other questions are not relevant to that.

 

Alright I take it back. Christianity recovered, expanded, enriched, and popularised democracy and human rights like no one else, besides being in the tradition of Judaism that acknowledged man is made in the image of God.

Are you aware that religions and nations are abstract concepts that do not exist?

 

"Islam" here is shorthand for "waves of barbarians come to wreck our culture, drown our gene pool, impose alien laws, and kill, maim, and terrorise our people."  Since these things associate with the "abstract concept" called "Islam," I refer to it as Islam.

[Donnadogsoth]

Poisoned question. Reason and intuition are not compatible. Devotion to dirt is not a rational conclusion. Love is not something one can have towards inanimate objects or concepts.

 

Intuition supplies the base of reason.  We intuit that the world makes sense, and proceed on that intuition to use our reason.  We must assume the world is rational before we put any stock in rationality.

 

I can admire the achievements of my fellow-men, and put a circle around those men who collectively formed the civilisation I was born into, and call my collective admiration and devotion to that civilisation, patriotic love.

[Donnadogsoth]

Donnadogsoth bearing in mind I, like you have belief in the

Divine what specifically should make me subscribe to the particular religion you espouse? As far as religious institutions go whenever people congregate in such a manner that centralises power and influence it attracts the corrupt.

 

A religion of peace should be peaceful. If it's not then it's not a religion of peace. I also think conflating every Christian denominations and cherry picking all the good things whilst ignoring the bad is being intellectually dishonest. Quakers for example campaigned to end slavery in the British Empire, but on the other hand slavery was justified by many others predicated on the story of Noah.

 

In short I am of the conviction that religious institutions more often than not actually get in the way of unity with all that monad stuff you were talking about earlier. If you have faith have it by all means, but not at the expense of anyone else's freedom. If you cannot find unity with your fellow human beings you are hardly going to be able to find it with God.

 

The writings of Lyndon Larouche, specifically his book Science of Christian Economy, which I can supply for you in PDF format if you wish. For that book, the specific passages from Appendix XIII, part III, What We Mean by the Superiority of Christian Civilization, is what I encourage to be read in answer to your question.

[dsayers]

Intuition supplies the base of reason.  We intuit that the world makes sense, and proceed on that intuition to use our reason.  We must assume the world is rational before we put any stock in rationality.

Humans have the capacity for error, which is how we know that any standard that originates within the human mind is fallible. We don't assume the world is rational, we observe it to be consistent, which is the basis for what we call rational.

 

Not that anybody reading this thread needs proof of Donnadogsoth's bitgotry, but there's clear evidence now. Note that in this thread, when I referenced a way that history has credited the State with something positive, he claimed that credit for the dominant religion of that State. In this post, he takes something that would be damaging to his bigotry and gives that credit to the State.

[Donnadogsoth]

Humans have the capacity for error, which is how we know that any standard that originates within the human mind is fallible. We don't assume the world is rational, we observe it to be consistent, which is the basis for what we call rational.

 

Not that anybody reading this thread needs proof of Donnadogsoth's bitgotry, but there's clear evidence now. Note that in this thread, when I referenced a way that history has credited the State with something positive, he claimed that credit for the dominant religion of that State. In this post, he takes something that would be damaging to his bigotry and gives that credit to the State.

 

You're now stating that the universe might not be rational, which is a paranoid thought. And people accuse me of irrationality for adhering to the Triune God. No, for you to assume your mind is rational enough to reliably note the consistency of the world, is the same as assuming the universe which you believe contains your mind is itself rational.

 

But, on to your charge against me. First, it is patent that Christendom did give rise to the things I said that it did. The role of the nation-states within it form a complicated story, and I'm hardly the one to discount their contributions. Charlemagne, Louis XI, and the Founding Fathers all contributed on behalf of their respective nation-states, or quasi-nation-states, but the thing to realise is that they did so in the context of the Christian narrative. Without that narrative, there might have been an Imperial China, or a Zulu empire, but there would never have been Christendom, and popularised human rights, democracy, and, outside of Judaism, the supreme concept that is the secret of our success, that humans are made in the mental image of the Creator.

 

Second, it is reliably reported, and I have no reason to believe untrue, that the society known in shorthand as the West is undergoing a phase of destruction, of its economies, most notably its manufacturing sector and its infrastructure, and of the mental capacities of its citizens which are required to successfully reproduce that society both mentally and physically. That few are even more than subconsciously aware of this process is part of the problem. And when it comes to warfare, the good men and women of the respective militaries are occasionally subject to being duped, used in a global game of geopolitical destabilisation. In these senses, related to the first point and post referenced, the country and its military do appear committed to self-destruction, or the destruction of the West, as through incompetence or designed incompetence, specifically traceable to the removal of the key principle of Western success already mentioned, the principle of man being made in the image of God.

 

If the above is correct, and I believe it is, then I have no moral choice but to be a patriot of this civilisation, which has created me, sustained me, and given me opportunities to help advance its great mission. Since this belief is based on principle, to remove it one will needs successfully rip out all conception of principle from my mind.

[dsayers]

You're now stating that the universe might not be rational, which is a paranoid thought.

Strawman. I would never claim that an inanimate object or concept was eligible for descriptors that apply to thought process. What I said was that rationality is derived from the consistency of matter and energy.

 

No, for you to assume your mind is rational enough to reliably note the consistency of the world

*I* was the one that pointed out that humans have the capacity for error. This is the opposite of "assuming your mind is rational." Instead of implying there's inconsistency in the properties of matter and energy, why don't you show me? When was the last time gravity reversed? When was the last time a single object was in two places at once?

 

For that matter, why are you trying to use rationality to usurp rationality?

[thebeardslastcall]

I think any logical argument you can make to establish a religion as peaceful can also be used to establish it as violent. Likewise any logical argument you use to say the religion isn't violent can also be used to say it isn't peaceful. If you can discredit members of a group based on some criteria that same reasoning can likely be used against an equivalent case trying to establish the religion as peaceful.

They're all irrational and lies in the philosophical sense. That's what distinguishes them from science, whether they're rationally, logically, and empirically based (science) or not (religion). Rational faith is believing in something that can be possible, but which you can't prove or have no evidence for. Irrational faith is believing in something that can't be possible and which has been empirically or logically disproven (like God).

 

All Muslims and Christians are spreading a great many falsities. How that short circuits each individuals brains towards different insane or irrational behaviors are just the symptoms (whether they be explicitly violent or not).

[Kurtis]

the supreme concept that is the secret of our success, that humans are made in the mental image of the Creator.

 

 

Could you help me understand why this is true? Or what it even means to say that a person is "made in the mental image of" someone or something?

[shirgall]

Could you help me understand why this is true? Or what it even means to say that a person is "made in the mental image of" someone or something?

 

That's the problem. Man is made in the image of God, supposedly, but the apparent truth is that gods were invented by man. Anthropomorphic coincidences are not miraculous (or benevolent), rather they are deliberate and manipulative.

 

That the Lord of Mt. Sinai managed to overcome the gods of the other mountains in the middle east and eventually suppress to the point of mere mention as "the adonai" or "heavenly host" nee "angels" is not supposed to hold your attention. It was always a monotheistic religion, and we were always at war with Eastasia.

[Donnadogsoth]

Strawman. I would never claim that an inanimate object or concept was eligible for descriptors that apply to thought process. What I said was that rationality is derived from the consistency of matter and energy.

 

*I* was the one that pointed out that humans have the capacity for error. This is the opposite of "assuming your mind is rational." Instead of implying there's inconsistency in the properties of matter and energy, why don't you show me? When was the last time gravity reversed? When was the last time a single object was in two places at once?

 

For that matter, why are you trying to use rationality to usurp rationality?

 

Calling the universe consistent is tantamount to calling it rational. If it is consistent and is governed by principles, then it is vulnerable to rationality as if it itself were designed for that purpose. Not every principle may be immediately discoverable, but they are all there to be discovered. Denying this would be denying the power of reason by presuming the universe not vulnerable to rationality.

 

Yes, we do have the capacity for error, but if the universes is not consistent, as you say, or vulnerable to reason, as I say, not principled, in other words, then human capacities are meaningless. I'm not sure what we're contending here. We seem to be saying the same thing in different words.

Could you help me understand why this is true? Or what it even means to say that a person is "made in the mental image of" someone or something?

 

Man is “made in the image of God” in the sense that God is a rational god, who made the universe according to principle, as embodying principle. Man possesses the unique capacity to discover these principles, as of gravity, light, nuclear physics, metallurgy, and the like, and also including principles of general universal organisation like the principle of least action, and also principles of art such as perspective, proportion, irony, and the like.

 

This capacity sets him above all other known species of life forms, making him sacred, in a sense, by virtue of his ability to continue creation, by discovering, transmitting, and assimilating into his economic and social practice these principles, the success of which is measurable by the increase in his potential relative population density—in essence, how many people could be kept alive, not how many are. That is a measure of mankind's power over nature, power to exist, power to survive, and it is a measurement that he is uniquely able to increase through his powers of reason. That, in short, is what it means to be made in the image of God.

[dsayers]

I'm not sure what we're contending here. Calling the universe consistent is tantamount to calling it rational.

If I say that rational is a description of a thought process and that inanimate objects/concepts cannot think, and then you repeat that "universe" (an inanimate object/concept) could be described as rational, the point of contention is sufficiently clear. Saying logic is derived from the consistency of matter and energy is not the same as saying that matter and energy are logical.

 

When you repeat what you said as if my clarification wasn't offered, you reveal that you are not engaging in a conversation. You don't need me for that, so best of LUCK to you.

[Donnadogsoth]

The universe is vulnerable to reason.  Therefore, in a sense of the word rational it can be called rational.  You call it "consistent" which is to say that the inanimate objects obey rational principles, i.e., principles apprehensible by reason, so they behave as if they think; e.g., the principle of least action.  As a Leibnizian I would agree that they do, but that's besides the point, which is that you're unnecessarily difficult.