← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · JoseyWales
Thread ID: 19084 | Posts: 39 | Started: 2005-07-11
2005-07-11 01:25 | User Profile
This is mainly directed at protestant church goers, myself attending a Babtist church most of my life. Im curious what others here think about supporting the various missionary work that is often lobbied for in churches these days. In a day when our own government steals from us and gives it away to other nations for various reasons, shouldnt we first focus on our own nation even more so ? Missionary efforts get much of their calling from Matthew 28:19-20
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
But what about taking care of your own house (nation) as well ? 1 Timothy 5:8
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
I think there maybe a fine line between missionary work and "humanitarian" aid or assistance or relief type efforts.
2005-07-12 23:08 | User Profile
JoseyWales,
I am not a church member, but my thoght is such-By 1900 white men had alread gone to all the nations of word. Most of them did not want to be Christian or took Christianity and perverted it. Catholic Churches in South Africa are now killing a goat during the mass. I would say the Missionary of the white man is done. He has alread done this:
[QUOTE] Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. [/QUOTE]
What more can we do. Did not someone say something about not casting your pearls before swine. Why sould we keep sending young to be killed by these savages that do not want us.
2005-07-17 17:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]JoseyWales,
I am not a church member, but my thoght is such-By 1900 white men had alread gone to all the nations of word. Most of them did not want to be Christian or took Christianity and perverted it. Catholic Churches in South Africa are now killing a goat during the mass. I would say the Missionary of the white man is done. He has alread done this:
What more can we do. Did not someone say something about not casting your pearls before swine. Why sould we keep sending young to be killed by these savages that do not want us.[/QUOTE]Well I disagree here in part. The gospel of Christ has great power, in spite of and transcending the failities of the men. Many international Churches count their largest active flocks in Africa these days. And Latin America of course is the creation of the Jesuit and other missionaries. Mexicans and American Indians might be awfully fallen, but they're still a lot better of even partially Christianized than they were than when they were sacrificing 40,000 people a year to the Sun God like the Aztecs or routinely skinning their prisoners alive and slowly filleting them like the Comanches and other American Indian tribes.
But some missionary efforts certainly seem disappointing overall, like what happened in Rwanda, one of the most supposedly "Christian" African countries.
2005-07-17 17:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JoseyWales]This is mainly directed at protestant church goers, myself attending a Babtist church most of my life. Im curious what others here think about supporting the various missionary work that is often lobbied for in churches these days. In a day when our own government steals from us and gives it away to other nations for various reasons, shouldnt we first focus on our own nation even more so ? Missionary efforts get much of their calling from Matthew 28:19-20
But what about taking care of your own house (nation) as well ? 1 Timothy 5:8
I think there maybe a fine line between missionary work and "humanitarian" aid or assistance or relief type efforts.[/QUOTE]I had to think a little bit about this, as its not ever clearly explained except sometimes a little bit by exageration. "Missionary" work has always had a mystique that tends to hide its real agenda's. But its really always suspect to me. When Churches do some srious Church growth/evangalism, they'll actualy just call it "Church planting" or something.
Misionary work by contrast has always had a basic cultural outreach connotation. And in today's context, that means multiculturalism. That was brought ought rather starkly today, when the speaker talked about the "infinite arrogance" of Americans and how rich we all are, and compared it of course to the brave virtues of our little colored cousins in the third world. Sort of like those pitiable commercials where you can "adopt" a third world child, with an appropriately pitiable face. Basically just selling mission work support as a guilt trip pill salve.
Not all mision work is bad, but behind this facade of MT 28:19 lurks a plethora of agenda's. Mission work can often be a racket. Know how to sift the wheat from the chaff.
2005-07-17 18:23 | User Profile
Before you believe in others you must believe in yourself and if you believe in yourself the there is no need to believe in others because you have already found what you were searching for.
Nothing wrong with religion as long as it makes you happy and it dosen't hurt others.
2005-07-17 18:25 | User Profile
Before you believe in others you must believe in yourself and if you believe in yourself then there is no need to believe in others because you have already found what you were searching for.
Nothing wrong with religion as long as it makes you happy and it dosen't hurt others.
2005-07-17 20:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]JoseyWales,
I am not a church member, but my thoght is such-By 1900 white men had alread gone to all the nations of word. Most of them did not want to be Christian or took Christianity and perverted it. Catholic Churches in South Africa are now killing a goat during the mass. I would say the Missionary of the white man is done. He has alread done this:
What more can we do. Did not someone say something about not casting your pearls before swine. Why sould we keep sending young to be killed by these savages that do not want us.[/QUOTE]
Africans now make up the majority of members in the Anglican church, and the no-nonsense attitudes of Nigerian or Kenyan bishops are preferable to the wooly secular liberalism of the Church of England.
2005-07-17 20:58 | User Profile
I would like to see the mainstream Protestant churches get involved in teaching Africans in Africa about the invention of the fly swatter. What it is. How to use it!
Maybe we could send some of our Negro clergy over to Africa to demonstrate the use of the fly swatter...of course our Negroes do have have problems with roaches....:disgust:
I hope that the small amount of money I give to the missions every year goes to buy fly swatters for Africans...or if used here in the US goes to kill cockroaches. Or even to buy one way bus tickets to send mestizos back to Latrino America.
2005-07-17 21:03 | User Profile
In the context and what is recorded of, and in, the New Testament, there is not one mission trip to Africa. There were Africans saved and converted in the N.T., but those souls came out of Africa to get saved.
More Afro-Americans (slaves) have been converted by being brought to America than were converted in Africa thru the work of missionaries.
The only time Africans were getting converted in any great numbers back then, was when a colonial warship was sailing off the coast, occassionally lobbing a shell into the villages and putting "the fear of God" into their huts.
IMO, most modern conversions in Africa are a result of give-away programs and private socialism (social gospel). Stop the freebies and the missionary goes into the pot.
2005-07-17 21:08 | User Profile
Mexicans and American Indians might be awfully fallen, but they're still a lot better of even partially Christianized than they were than when they were sacrificing 40,000 people a year to the Sun God like the Aztecs or routinely skinning their prisoners alive and slowly filleting them like the Comanches and other American Indian tribes.
Excellent point.
Christianity is the only true religion. And where ever it has influence, things get better.
There is no liberty outside of Christianity. All you secular materialists, please name one nation/country where there is liberty which did not have a Christian foundation.
2005-07-17 22:22 | User Profile
I think the new missionary field is the USA itself, to slow the decline of Christianity. I don't mean door-to-door missionaries and Christian tracts, I mean youth programs that keep teens going to church. Maybe interest-free loans to less prosperous members. Local churches working together to offer low-cost, high-quality private education. Etc.
It was admirable for white missionaries of old to travel to darkest Africa and introduce Christianity to the natives, hopefully without getting killed. But, these days, most missionaries efforts are the Social Gospel, long on Social and short on Gospel. Except where Christian churches are banned (e.g. North Korea), there are local churches to do local missionary work across the world.
Given the sorry state of modern American Christiandom, maybe a little seperation is good. I don't wnat American missionaries teaching African Christians about tolerance of homosexuals, etc.
It's time for American churches to refocus.
2005-07-17 23:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I think the new missionary field is the USA itself, to slow the decline of Christianity. I don't mean door-to-door missionaries and Christian tracts, I mean youth programs that keep teens going to church. Maybe interest-free loans to less prosperous members. Local churches working together to offer low-cost, high-quality private education. Etc. Of course there's nothing new really about these types of efforts at all. But the fsct of the matter is this types of activities are often difficult, and in fact often quietly shuttered or left by the wayside, occasionally to be replaced faddish "new" outreach programs with the appropriate hype.
Missionary efforts are very much hyped and faddish. That's the attaction. They can be opened with considerable fanfare, then quietly dropped later. Only the missionaries themselves really know wat's going on.
It was admirable for white missionaries of old to travel to darkest Africa and introduce Christianity to the natives, hopefully without getting killed. But, these days, most missionaries efforts are the Social Gospel, long on Social and short on Gospel. Except where Christian churches are banned (e.g. North Korea), there are local churches to do local missionary work across the world. Yeah, that what gives me misgivings about a lot of mission work. The stereotyped mission trip is to go to some third world country and have some big picture with the locals outside the Church building smiling. Oh this looks good.
The real scope of mission activity proprly it seems to me would be to help use our freedom here in this country to send educational and evangelical materials to the many places in the world where such is rstricted or banned outright, - China, North Korea, most moslem countries -Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia, Morroco etc. Or maybe to help Chrisians that really are under terrible persecution and have no way of helping themselves, like in Sudan.
This isn't as popular though. You don't get any big pictures of smiling natives standing by their new church building to show to the folks back home.
Given the sorry state of modern American Christiandom, maybe a little seperation is good. I don't wnat American missionaries teaching African Christians about tolerance of homosexuals, etc.
It's time for American churches to refocus.[/QUOTE]Actually you're right here in an important aspect. Missionaries historically have often in fact been linked to subversive activities, both theologicall and politically. From the Catholic Maryknoller's sponsorship of "revolutionary theology" (thinkly veiled communism) to the subversive work of a lot of the missionaries in pre communist China, there's a lot of mischief that likes to hide out on mission fields, far from the watching eyes of anybody but themselves. [QUOTE] It's time for American churches to refocus.[/QUOTE]Missionary efforts are by nature always being "refocused". What's need most is to find support for those activities that have had the right focus all along, and help keep the focus there. Setting it apart from endless fads that permeate the mission work area.
As with Church life in general.
2005-07-18 01:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=CWRWinger] There is no liberty outside of Christianity. All you secular materialists, please name one nation/country where there is liberty which did not have a Christian foundation.[/QUOTE]
What is meant by "liberty"?
2005-07-18 01:31 | User Profile
Bardamu: What is meant by "liberty"?
1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
1 Peter 2:16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
2005-07-18 05:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=CWRWinger]There is no liberty outside of Christianity.
Christianity is not freedom. Having one's conduct bound by a book that one thinks is the "word of God" is hardly freedom. If it turns out that the Bible was merely written by men without any help from God -- and that's precisely what I think is the case -- then anyone who follows the Bible is a slave to long-dead men.
Any nation can be free as long as its citizens agree that they should all be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they aren't doing some sort of harm. "Live and let live." That's what freedom is all about. Religion has nothing to do with it. In fact, strongly religious people -- all of whom think that their religion is the true one -- often feel justified in forcing their views on other people, which is the exact opposite of freedom. There's really no way to reason with such people, since NO religion can be proved wrong.
All you secular materialists, please name one nation/country where there is liberty which did not have a Christian foundation.[/QUOTE]Throughout history, religion has been used to support tyranny (e.g., the "Divine Right of Kings") more often than it has been used to support freedom.
It's a good thing that the Founders of the US disobeyed the Biblical prohibition against rebelling against one's rulers (see Paul's letters especially). If they hadn't, then there'd have been no Revolutionary War, and the US probably wouldn't exist today.
2005-07-18 08:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Christianity is not freedom. Having one's conduct bound by a book that one thinks is the "word of God" is hardly freedom. True. But to have freedom for society, people must be wlling to voluntarily curtail their own freedoms. Muted individualism that's what MacDonald calls it. Without personal restraint political freedom is impossible - one must have a dictatorship.
People without personal restraint politically are intactable, like Spiderman and Fade - lots of talk, but they can never put aside their maassive ego's for the common good.
Any nation can be free as long as its citizens agree that they should all be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they aren't doing some sort of harm. "Live and let live." That's what freedom is all about. Religion has nothing to do with it. Oh yeah? Why should its citizens agree to such without religion? Natural altruism?
In fact, strongly religious people -- all of whom think that their religion is the true one -- often feel justified in forcing their views on other people, which is the exact opposite of freedom. There's really no way to reason with such people, since NO religion can be proved wrong. That's not really true that you can't reason with people about their religion. Some religions are that way, but some aren't. Christianity isn't.
There is an element of inaccesibility in any person's religious beliefs of course. To be religious means they can't be easily shed, by definition. But the teachings of Christianity arguably provide the the best groundwork for trying to reason with a person why he [B]shouldn't[/B] force his views on others than any system of belief devised, including modern humanism.
You seem to have adopted to the modern multiculturalist relativist tendency of asserting all religions, like all cultures, are the same and essentially equal.
Throughout history, religion has been used to support tyranny (e.g., the "Divine Right of Kings") more often than it has been used to support freedom. With regard to the western world, you are greatly showing your lack of real historical knowledge. Eveyone who studies the western world seriously realizes the unique restraints Christianity modulated on Kings, and the real trivialness of the practical effect of this phrase "divine right of Kings".
DROK was historically very insignificant concept. It had little meaning at all until after the reformation, when the Kings use of religion became momentarily autonomous from the Pope. But no one followed it much anyway, like in the case of the French Kings.
It's a good thing that the Founders of the US disobeyed the Biblical prohibition against rebelling against one's rulers (see Paul's letters especially). If they hadn't, then there'd have been no Revolutionary War, and the US probably wouldn't exist today.[/QUOTE]Actually the revolution was predicated on the Puritan rallying cry "No King But King Jesus". So much for religion induced political quietism.
It is truly amazing really how may so called WN on politics and religion really just believe practically word for word the tripe you hear out of the ACLU. Its as if they never notice, and expect us to ignore, the philosophical and rhetorical yarmuke on their heads.
2005-07-18 09:22 | User Profile
Angler:
Please name a country.
Also, you have bought into the liberal interpretation of Paul ( I assume you are talking of the Apostle, Paul) and his writings on gov't, the book of Romans, chapter 13.
Paul also wrote, the "prison epistles". DUH! Paul was i nRoman (and other) prisons! He was there because he wilfully disobeyed the powers that be! He would not submit, especially when they (gov't authorities) tried to suppress his speech. He broke their bogus laws. God expects Christians to resist tyranny.
Also, Jesus denounced the Pharisees and Sadducees of his day, calling them "vipers" and "whited sepluchres". These were gov't as well as religious leaders of that day. They served a dual role in that society. Rome allowed the locals a measure of self rule. And the local Jews corrupted it.
2005-07-18 10:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust][quote=Angler]Any nation can be free as long as its citizens agree that they should all be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they aren't doing some sort of harm. "Live and let live." That's what freedom is all about. Religion has nothing to do with it.
Oh yeah? Why should its citizens agree to such without religion? Natural altruism?[/QUOTE]Well, I know that my own actions are in no way influenced by any fear of some God or reward/punishment after death. I simply do whatever I please. Yet I avoid victimizing innocent people or attempting to manipulate or control others by force or fraud. That's simply for the reason that I find the idea of doing so distasteful. It's in my nature to feel this way, just as it's in the nature of members of an elephant herd or a pride of lions to get along with each other for their mutual benefit and improved survivability. And my sense of morality is hardly unique among nonreligious people. Thus, if people who feel this way -- who naturally seek to get along with their fellow men and have no desire to rule over others -- were to form a nation of their own, there would be no need for religion.
Of course many people lack such natural inclinations toward benevolence, so perhaps religion does serve the useful purpose of keeping the masses in line without the need for excessive civil policing. In that sense, I suppose, religion can be seen as beneficial to freedom. That doesn't necessarily make religion truthful by any means, and one could argue that a person who lives in unsubstantiated fear is enslaved by it; but perhaps it's better that the masses be controlled by religious superstition than by a police state, if those are the only two choices.
This reminds me of the classic quote from the Roman historian Polybius (130 BC):
But among the most useful institutions, that demonstrate the superior excellence of the Roman government, the most considerable perhaps is the opinion that the people are taught to hold concerning the gods: and that, which other men regard as an object of disgrace, appears in my judgment to be the very thing by which this republic chiefly is sustained. I mean, superstition: which is impressed with all its terrors; and influences both private and public actions of the citizens, and the public administration also of the state, in a degree that can scarcely be exceeded. This may appear astonishing to many. To me it is evident, that this contrivance was at first adopted for the sake of the multitude. For if it were possible that a state could be composed of wise men only, there would be no need, perhaps, of any such invention. But as the people universally are fickle and inconsistent, filled with irregular desires, too precipitate in there passions, and prone to violence; there is no way left to restrain them, but by dread of things unseen, and by the pageantry of terrifying fiction. The ancients, therefore, acted not absurdedly, nor without good reason, when they inculcated the notions concerning the gods, and the belief of infernal punishments; but much more those of the present age are to be charged with rashness and absurdity, in endeavoring to extirpate these opinions.
[url]http://www.zianet.com/godisgood/polybius.html[/url]
That's not really true that you can't reason with people about their religion. Some religions are that way, but some aren't. Christianity isn't. I'm afraid that I've found the opposite. Most Christians I've talked to simply become annoyed when their beliefs are questioned. Belief for most Christians seems to be a highly emotional thing. That's a very alien mindset to me, as I think believing or disbelieving in something because it's comforting is among the worst sins a person can commit against his own mind. Yet this is extremely common behavior (note the classic denial phase many people go through when a loved one dies).
There is an element of inaccesibility in any person's religious beliefs of course. To be religious means they can't be easily shed, by definition. You're hinting at one of my main problems with religion: the way it causes people to treat different kinds of knowledge according to different standards of rationality. "This category of knowledge will be subject to my rational thought; that category is religious, so I'll suspend my disbelief or at least lower my standards of acceptance." I mean, if someone today named John Smith claimed to cram two of every species of animal into a boat the size of Noah's Ark as it was described in the Bible, everyone would think he was full of crap. Why do so many people believe that same ridiculous story when it's told in the Bible? Because they have a special mental compartment for Biblical knowledge that's labeled "Do Not Question." I just don't understand that.
But the teachings of Christianity arguably provide the the best groundwork for trying to reason with a person why he shouldn't force his views on others than any system of belief devised, including modern humanism. I agree that Christianity is certainly compatible with freedom for that reason. After all, Jesus taught by example that "victimless crimes" should not be punished (i.e., the adulteress and the "cast the first stone" scene). The problem isn't so much with Christian teachings per se as with those who want to force them down other peoples' throats.
You seem to have adopted to the modern multiculturalist relativist tendency of asserting all religions, like all cultures, are the same and essentially equal. By no means do I imagine that all religions are equivalent in their teachings. I do think they're all false and thus equal in that sense. I don't rule out the existence of some Higher Power, but with all due respect to everyone here, I find the idea of an Almighty God using a book to communicate with mankind preposterous. That includes the Bible, the Koran, and every other "holy" book ever written. If God wanted to communicate with mankind, He would have done so in an unambiguous, unmistakable manner (like a booming voice from the sky, or writing on the moon). Why would a perfect God choose an imperfect and easily-corruptible method of communication that can't be verified to have come from Him in the first place? It makes no sense at all.
[quote=Angler]Throughout history, religion has been used to support tyranny (e.g., the "Divine Right of Kings") more often than it has been used to support freedom. With regard to the western world, you are greatly showing your lack of real historical knowledge. Eveyone who studies the western world seriously realizes the unique restraints Christianity modulated on Kings, and the real trivialness of the practical effect of this phrase "divine right of Kings".
DROK was historically very insignificant concept. It had little meaning at all until after the reformation, when the Kings use of religion became momentarily autonomous from the Pope. But no one followed it much anyway, like in the case of the French Kings. I don't claim to be an expert in history, but I think your assertion that the DROK was historically insignificant is mistaken. I don't see how the idea that "to question the King is to question God" can be seen as insignificant when it was widely believed and put into practice.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings[/url]
At any rate, that was only one example, not my entire case. History is replete with examples of Christians (and others) converting people by fire and sword. There's no need to list these examples here.
Actually the revolution was predicated on the Puritan rallying cry "No King But King Jesus". So much for reliion induced political quietism. How many of the Founders were Puritans? I don't believe the motto "No King but King Jesus" appears anywhere in the Declaration of Independence. And at any rate, such a motto clearly contradicts the writings of Saint Paul (Romans, Ch. 13) forbidding rebellion against earthly rulers.
It is truly amazing really how may so called WN on politics and religion really just believe practically word for word the tripe you hear out of the ACLU. Its as if they never notice, and expect us to ignore, the philosophical and hetoricalyarmuke on their heads. Well, I for one don't read any ACLU material. They lack credibility with me for one reason in particular: they don't support the 2nd Amendment. Regardless of what religion I or anyone else does or doesn't believe in, all rights here on earth are guaranteed only by force and the ability to use force.
2005-07-18 10:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=CWRWinger]Angler:
Please name a country. I can't, as there aren't any truly free countries today (that I know of).
Also, you have bought into the liberal interpretation of Paul ( I assume you are talking of the Apostle, Paul) and his writings on gov't, the book of Romans, chapter 13.
Paul also wrote, the "prison epistles". DUH! Paul was i nRoman (and other) prisons! He was there because he wilfully disobeyed the powers that be! He would not submit, especially when they (gov't authorities) tried to suppress his speech. He broke their bogus laws. God expects Christians to resist tyranny. No, my interpretation is pretty standard. A more liberal view that I've heard suggested by some theologians is that Paul's words were probably intended to provide reassurance to the Roman authorities that the Christians were not subversive.
I realize that the passage in Paul I mentioned allows for (actually, calls for) disobedience of earthly rulers when their demands extend to disobeying Christianity. But that doesn't cover all the bases when it comes to tyranny. For example, if a government starts randomly throwing people into prison or demands that they turn in all their guns, Christians will be required by Paul to play along and not resist, since doing so would not require Christians to blaspheme God or otherwise sin.
Also, Jesus denounced the Pharisees and Sadducees of his day, calling them "vipers" and "whited sepluchres". These were gov't as well as religious leaders of that day. They served a dual role in that society. Rome allowed the locals a measure of self rule. And the local Jews corrupted it.[/QUOTE]But of course Paul's words wouldn't apply to Jesus. The whole point of Paul's teaching about rulers is that they should be obeyed (except when that entails disobedience to God) because they're appointed by God. If Jesus was God, then he could hardly be sinning by criticizing the very rulers to whom he gave power.
2005-07-18 15:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Well, I know that my own actions are in no way influenced by any fear of some God or reward/punishment after death. I simply do whatever I please. Yet I avoid victimizing innocent people or attempting to manipulate or control others by force or fraud. That's simply for the reason that I find the idea of doing so distasteful. It's in my nature to feel this way, just as it's in the nature of members of an elephant herd or a pride of lions to get along with each other for their mutual benefit and improved survivability. And my sense of morality is hardly unique among nonreligious people. Thus, if people who feel this way -- who naturally seek to get along with their fellow men and have no desire to rule over others -- were to form a nation of their own, there would be no need for religion. It seems like we've discussed this before. You claim its your nature, but where did this nature come from? From the way you were brought up in Church? A few unspoken assumptions you really don't think about? Most people are like that.
Of course many people lack such natural inclinations toward benevolence, so perhaps religion does serve the useful purpose of keeping the masses in line without the need for excessive civil policing. In that sense, I suppose, religion can be seen as beneficial to freedom. That doesn't necessarily make religion truthful by any means, and one could argue that a person who lives in unsubstantiated fear is enslaved by it; but perhaps it's better that the masses be controlled by religious superstition than by a police state, if those are the only two choices.
This reminds me of the classic quote from the Roman historian Polybius (130 BC):
I'm afraid that I've found the opposite. Most Christians I've talked to simply become annoyed when their beliefs are questioned. Belief for most Christians seems to be a highly emotional thing. That's a very alien mindset to me, as I think believing or disbelieving in something because it's comforting is among the worst sins a person can commit against his own mind. Yet this is extremely common behavior (note the classic denial phase many people go through when a loved one dies).
You're hinting at one of my main problems with religion: the way it causes people to treat different kinds of knowledge according to different standards of rationality. "This category of knowledge will be subject to my rational thought; that category is religious, so I'll suspend my disbelief or at least lower my standards of acceptance." I mean, if someone today named John Smith claimed to cram two of every species of animal into a boat the size of Noah's Ark as it was described in the Bible, everyone would think he was full of crap. Why do so many people believe that same ridiculous story when it's told in the Bible? Because they have a special mental compartment for Biblical knowledge that's labeled "Do Not Question." I just don't understand that. [/QUOTE]Most people are not ready to give a full apologetic for what they believe. Part of that is just ignorance, part of that modern theology, which downplays the need for rational and verifiable proofs. You may have picked this up in the Lutheran church you attended as a youth.
As to compartmentalization, every body does that to some extent. You evaluate a pilot's promise that "we're prepared for take-off" with more trust and less scrutiny than your spam e-mail or phone call "you have become an instant winner". To some extent that's just the nature of things. People don't have time to philosophize or question the basixcassumptions they rely on constantly.
[QUOTE]I agree that Christianity is certainly compatible with freedom for that reason. After all, Jesus taught by example that "victimless crimes" should not be punished (i.e., the adulteress and the "cast the first stone" scene). The problem isn't so much with Christian teachings per se as with those who want to force them down other peoples' throats.[/QUOTE]Well that's not common as far as I know anymore, a lot more than people complaining about it, as it seems to be an easy fall-back. But I'll accept your anecdote.
[QUOTE]By no means do I imagine that all religions are equivalent in their teachings. I do think they're all false and thus equal in that sense.[/QUOTE] Well that pretty much exactly what multiculturalist education incalcucates You may want to check the origin of your assumptions and disbelief. Just a thought.
[QUOTE] I don't rule out the existence of some Higher Power, but with all due respect to everyone here, I find the idea of an Almighty God using a book to communicate with mankind preposterous. That includes the Bible, the Koran, and every other "holy" book ever written. If God wanted to communicate with mankind, He would have done so in an unambiguous, unmistakable manner (like a booming voice from the sky, or writing on the moon). Why would a perfect God choose an imperfect and easily-corruptible method of communication that can't be verified to have come from Him in the first place? It makes no sense at all.[/QUOTE]Well verbal, prepositional revelation has a lot of advantages. If everyone claimed to speak directly with God, how would you resolve disagreements over what he said.
That said, part of acknowledging the transcendence of God means acknowledging his autonomy and sovereignty over how he chooses to speak with us. I'd prefer perhaps a phone call twice a day perhaps myself. Just like I would from the President. But I acknowledge his reasons for communicating differently, the way he has chosen.
[QUOTE]I don't claim to be an expert in history, but I think your assertion that the DROK was historically insignificant is mistaken. I don't see how the idea that "to question the King is to question God" can be seen as insignificant when it was widely believed and put into practice.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings[/url][/QUOTE]Well compared to other religions, I think Christianity is rather libertarian. Look at the way Chinamen used to worship their emperor. But I'm sure there was some abuse. Any religion can be abused.
[QUOTE]At any rate, that was only one example, not my entire case. History is replete with examples of Christians (and others) converting people by fire and sword. There's no need to list these examples here.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]How many of the Founders were Puritans? I don't believe the motto "No King but King Jesus" appears anywhere in the Declaration of Independence.[/QUOTE]You're right. Thomas Jefferson cetainly wasn't a Puritan. But it certainly was a common rallying cry in New England, as it had been from the inception of the Massachusetts Bay colony. > And at any rate, such a motto clearly contradicts the writings of Saint Paul (Romans, Ch. 13) forbidding rebellion against earthly rulers. Well one can argue over that of course. Don't get emotional if I disagree with your interpretation :wink:
Well, I for one don't read any ACLU material. They lack credibility with me for one reason in particular: they don't support the 2nd Amendment. Yees, but they control what you hear in school or in the media. No one hears anything else. Prejudices are acquired that way. You think every bigoted slave owner who whipped his slaves had read Gen 9 about Ham.
You question everything supposedly - you might question the nature of your own presuppositions and notions, and why they coincide so closely with the ACLu/media's constant refrains. I don't think its out of the question.
Regardless of what religion I or anyone else does or doesn't believe in, all rights here on earth are guaranteed only by force and the ability to use force.[/QUOTE]Power flows from the barrel of a gun. To have a democracy people need to believe more than that. If people only respect force, you end up like Mexico.
2005-07-19 01:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=CWRWinger]Bardamu: What is meant by "liberty"?
1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
1 Peter 2:16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.[/QUOTE]
I think politics when the word liberty comes up. When Patrick Henry said "give me liberty or give me death" he wasn't talking about Christ. Here are some secular definitions of the word:
Definitions of liberty on the Web:
[B]autonomy: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence
freedom of choice; "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes"
personal freedom from servitude or confinement or oppression [/B]
2005-07-19 01:32 | User Profile
Matthew 11:25-30
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
2005-07-19 03:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]I think politics when the word liberty comes up. When Patrick Henry said "give me liberty or give me death" he wasn't talking about Christ. Here are some secular definitions of the word:
Definitions of liberty on the Web:
[B]autonomy: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence
freedom of choice; "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes"
personal freedom from servitude or confinement or oppression [/B][/QUOTE] These definitions are pretty threadbare. 1. and 3 are just basically "the opposite of oppression (or the opposite of non-liberty) 2. uses the same word.
Considering I think we want to move from just websters to a politicaly significant definition of liberty, this is a pretty poor start. I'm alays reminded of Moeller's note thsat vacuous or disingenuous use of the word "liberty" is the essence of liberalism. And often reading WN's I am reminded how really that is all they are really, nihlistic white liberals.
2005-07-19 12:16 | User Profile
Just taking a shot at a definition Okie, since the biblical stuff was too ambiguous. How do you define liberty? Freedom from the dreaded WN? :lol:
2005-07-19 12:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Just taking a shot at a definition Okie, since the biblical stuff was too ambiguous. Next time try not to shoot off your foot.> How do you define liberty? Freedom from the dreaded WN? :lol:[/QUOTE]Pour moi? Succinctly, freedom from the world of liberalism, of which WN's as defined today seems to often do its best to prove itself a part of.
In depth, political and social philosophers work very hard to define liberty in its actual political, social, and cultural contexts. There is no simple definition, except for liberals.
2005-07-19 13:10 | User Profile
Alright, Okie defines liberty as freedom from liberalism, but this is too broad a definition as it would make Islam, which is anti-liberal, a force of liberty. And what is liberal anyway? Any thought that moves beyond biblical references, ie the word of god?
2005-07-19 23:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Alright, Okie defines liberty as freedom from liberalism, but this is too broad a definition as it would make Islam, which is anti-liberal, a force of liberty. Well for me it certainly is,, as liberalism is the main threat to my liberties I face. And of course Islam in its context is certainly anti-liberal. but in the western world it's establishment is a client of liberalism, that's why I would view it as an enemy of liberty.
Now in the eastern world, to the Palestinians fighting the Mossad, or the Iraqi's fighting Bush, Islam very often is viewed as a force for freedom. But their world and what they consider liberty obviously is different. True liberty comes from conservatism, and as Suba in my signature says
[QUOTE]The conservative does not conceive of his principles as describable in detail independent of a particular political and cultural context. Conservatism does not admit of applicability in a manner indifferent to time, place, or history. Although conservatism does have general principles, what is primarily conserved are institutions, and these are diverse. Conservatism therefore differs in flavor from place to place and from time to time, and one flavor cannot be reduced to another. [URL=http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg73593.html]Revolutionary Conservatism - What's That?[/URL] [/QUOTE]
And what is liberal anyway? Any thought that moves beyond biblical references, ie the word of god?[/QUOTE]Hah, I didn't think you knew? You almost sound like a whining liberal! :lol:
I guess you can start out with my definition of "Revolutionary Conservatism" on my signature. Of course much has been written about liberalism.
Moeller defined the principle of liberalism
[QUOTE][B]"the principle of liberalism is to have no fixed principle and to contend that this itself a principle"[/B][/QUOTE] and the origins of liberalism as follows
[QUOTE]"Modern liberalism has its rots where the individual shook off the conventions of the middle ages. The liberal afterwards claimed to have freed themselves from them. This freedom of his was an illusion."[/QUOTE]
...leading to his conclusion
[QUOTE]"It bore, in fact, all the characteristic signs of liberalism, which is prepared to endorse any contradiction and to look at any detruction with which the magic word liberty can by any means be associated.
Liberalism began with a false idea of liberty, which it misunderstood even as it formulated it; and it ended with a false idea of liberty which it employed no longer to defend liberty but to pursue advantage.
All human error lies here, and many a crime".[/QUOTE]
Anyway that's my take on liberty and liberalism and my principles. What's yours? Do you actually have an idea of liberty yourself, or like liberals do you just through the word around? Do you have any principles yourself, or do you just have no fixed principle and contend this is a principle".
The reason I am so down on the radical WN world is really they in many ways seem to be the quintessentially liberal. That's why I distance themselves from them. People criticize me for this, also criticize me for associating themselves with WN, but they never can realy give me any definitive principles of their own that distinguish themselves from liberalism, and they ones that could they undercut by reflexively bashing their roots in our medieval past. I've given you mine, what are [B]your[/B] principles and understanding on liberty?
2005-07-20 02:44 | User Profile
I understand liberty in the conventional fashion of freedom to act and think without undo interference from any of the myriad of principalities, be they ecclesiastic or statist, that surround and stare down at us from commanding heights of superior organization. Liberty is the right to have one's own opinions and to voice them, to open a business without undo taxation, to open a newspaper or website, to purchase property and have that property inviolate from undo search and seizure, to associate with people of one's own choice, etc. etc. But I have much to learn about liberty, and that is why I was asking.
2005-07-20 03:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]I understand liberty in the conventional fashion of freedom to act and think without undo interference from any of the myriad of principalities, be they ecclesiastic or statist, that surround and stare down at us from commanding heights of superior organization. Liberty is the right to have one's own opinions and to voice them, to open a business without undo taxation, to open a newspaper or website, to purchase property and have that property inviolate from undo search and seizure, to associate with people of one's own choice, etc. etc. But I have much to learn about liberty, and that is why I was asking.[/QUOTE]Its not a simple question actually to be sure. Freedom depends on our nature. What's freedom to one person might be slavery to another. Freedom to a fish means freedom to swim in the sea, to a gazelle it means to run on the land. To the fish the gazelle's freedom is slavery for him, and vice versa.
Jesus of course in John 8:32-36 tried to discuss this point with the Pharisees. The Pharisees thought they were already free, but Jesus said they were actually slaves to sin, and would be truly free until they knew the truth. Pilate of course replied as a pagan "What is Truth".
David Hacket Fischer wrote an interesting book called [URL=http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p114_Rosit.html]"Albion's Seed"[/URL]. In it he described four different British folkways that founded America, Puritans, Quakers, Cavaliars, and Scotch-Irish, their respective views of liberty, and how they shaped America. Respectively these were ordered liberty, recipricol liberty, hierarchial liberty, and natural liberty. Alll these folkways describe their own view of the relationship of man to his community.
The modern "liberal" view of liberty like the ACLU asserts is based on the different, secular view of the autonomous man. I'd say its really pretty much what libertarians hold to also.
Anyway you see how its not a simple topic. Hope at least this provides you some food for thought.
-Okie
2005-07-20 05:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]It seems like we've discussed this before. You claim its your nature, but where did this nature come from? From the way you were brought up in Church? A few unspoken assumptions you really don't think about? Most people are like that. I've thought an awful lot about it, actually -- and you're right, I have discussed this before (though I'm not sure it was with you). Basically, I think that human nature comes from precisely the same source as animal nature: evolution. Human beings who instinctively cooperate with each other mutually aid each others' survival, thus increasing their probability of successful procreation. All social animals benefit from cooperation.
This is potentially a very complicated topic, and I'm not an evolutionary psychologist. (I wonder if Kevin MacDonald would have anything to say about this, as it's directly related to his field.) And many would reject my views outright simply because they involve the "e-word." But it makes a lot of sense to me, as it explains the "morality" of both lower social animals and humans.
Most people are not ready to give a full apologetic for what they believe. Part of that is just ignorance, part of that modern theology, which downplays the need for rational and verifiable proofs. You may have picked this up in the Lutheran church you attended as a youth. (I was actually a Roman Catholic for the first 30 or so years of my life, but whatever.) I agree with your statement about most people, but I don't think it applies to me. I certainly can't prove everything I believe, but I can explain why I think each of my beliefs is more plausible than the alternatives. Of course, that would take many volumes for nearly anyone to do.
I reject most of modern theology on the simple grounds that it can't be proven or falsified. I think of theology as magnificent castles and cathedrals built on air. Of course Christians aren't likely to agree with me, but I'm absolutely certain that people believe that stuff simply because they want to believe it. What I strive to do is be something like Mr. Spock -- not that I don't show any emotion, but I try to keep my emotions from having any effect on my beliefs. Believe it or not, I would actually welcome proof of God's existence. I want to believe that He exists. But there is nothing remotely resembling proof, or even strong evidence, of God's existence, and back when I was about 30 years old, I finally admitted that to myself and became agnostic.
My former church, the Roman Catholic Church, states as part of its dogma that it's possible to know of God's existence through human reason. They are 100% dead wrong. That point isn't even debatable as far as I'm concerned. If it were possible, then someone would have coughed up an ironclad proof.
As to compartmentalization, every body does that to some extent. You evaluate a pilot's promise that "we're prepared for take-off" with more trust and less scrutiny than your spam e-mail or phone call "you have become an instant winner". To some extent that's just the nature of things. People don't have time to philosophize or question the basixcassumptions they rely on constantly. Yes, you're right. But I think it's odd that people often subject religious ideas -- ideas that they often allow to dominate their entire lives -- to less scrutiny than any other ideas. Many religious people simply don't even question their beliefs -- they're afraid to, either because they worry about "offending God" or because they're afraid they won't like the conclusions they arrive at.
[quote=Angler]By no means do I imagine that all religions are equivalent in their teachings. I do think they're all false and thus equal in that sense.
Well that pretty much exactly what multiculturalist education incalcucates You may want to check the origin of your assumptions and disbelief. Just a thought. I don't think multiculturalists teach that all religions are false. And even if they did, it's not like my points of view are derived from theirs. Look at all the other subjects on which I completely disagree with them (racial differences in intelligence and temperament, for example).
The origin of my disbelief comes mostly from my own careful questioning of the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general. Certain authors also had a reinforcing influence on that process, most notably Robert Ingersoll. But make no mistake: leaving Christianity was not easy by any means. Religious belief was like an extremely addictive drug for me, and leaving its comfort was frightening at first. But I had to do it. I'll always take what I think is a painful truth over a comfortable falsehood.
Well verbal, prepositional revelation has a lot of advantages. If everyone claimed to speak directly with God, how would you resolve disagreements over what he said. That's pretty much what has happened anyway -- no one can agree on what God said or the meaning of this Bible verse or that one. Everybody has the "one true faith," and no one does.
That said, part of acknowledging the transcendence of God means acknowledging his autonomy and sovereignty over how he chooses to speak with us.
I'd prefer perhaps a phone call twice a day perhaps myself. Just like I would from the President. But I acknowledge his reasons for communicating differently, the way he has chosen. This assumes that God exists and has spoken with us in the first place. These things are open to question.
No one doubts that God, if He exists, has the power to do what He wants. But why would He do something in a less-than-optimum manner? If someone claims that He has done so, then that's cause for skepticism. And all of religion, in effect, claims that God operates in a nonsensical manner -- speaking to men through books, hiding from men yet performing miracles "that we may believe," etc.
Again, if God really cares about people believing in Him, He could do things to make His existence and His will unmistakable. That has not happened by any means. If it had, then there would be no atheists or agnostics, and everyone would have exactly the same religion.
Well compared to other religions, I think Christianity is rather libertarian. Agreed! Christianity, as Jesus taught it, is VERY libertarian. The earlier example of the adulteress whom Jesus rescued from punishment proves it. The clear lesson of that scene is that no one has the right to punish other people for sins -- that's God's job. That doesn't mean society doesn't have the right to protect itself from murderers, etc. But people do NOT have the right to punish others for adultery or other victimless crimes (e.g., drug use). This is one of the thinks I really like about Christianity. It's not enough to make me believe in it, but I still like it. Unfortunately, the majority of Christians seem to fail to understand the clear implications of Jesus' teachings. If they did understand, then they wouldn't support punishing people for victimless crimes like drug use and so forth. I mean, adultery is obviously a worse sin than drug use, so it's doubtful that Jesus would punish the latter if he wouldn't punish the former.
Look at the way Chinamen used to worship their emperor. But I'm sure there was some abuse. Any religion can be abused. Absolutely. And I daresay most Christians abuse their religion. They don't practice the Christianity Jesus taught. They think they're sinless enough to support locking up people for drug use, for example. Or they think they're doing God a big favor by supporting wars in the Middle East. I'd bet most Freepers are Christians who fall into this self-righteous category.
You question everything supposedly - you might question the nature of your own presuppositions and notions, and why they coincide so closely with the ACLu/media's constant refrains. I don't think its out of the question. This was addressed above. There are many, many issues on which I disagree with the ACLU and the mainstream media. C'mon, Okie -- I've posted here long enough for you to know that. :) I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the ACLU protects many "rights" that aren't even true Constitutional rights, and they fail to protect many genuine rights.
As a specific example, although I'm not a Christian, I have no problem at all with prayers in public schools as long as no one is forced to participate.
When it comes to the Ten Commandments in a courtroom, I don't mind it too much but think it's a rather silly issue considering that most of the commandments forbid actions that aren't even criminal (e.g., coveting neighbor's wife, adultery, failing to honor one's father and mother).
Power flows from the barrel of a gun. To have a democracy people need to believe more than that. If people only respect force, you end up like Mexico.[/QUOTE]I don't think people should only respect force. People should do their best to work out their differences with civility, following their own higher instincts toward cooperation as much as possible. But force is always an option, and it's often the first option for some (e.g., government bullies). That's why it always has to be an option for citizens to use against government. But that's something we probably agree on, anyway.
Good discussion, Okie.
2005-07-20 14:01 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust] I would say the Missionary of the white man is done. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE] On many a shore of Africa, for example, missionaries eager to win souls ventured to land alone; and the natives, after having a lot of fun torturing them to death, ate them -- either cooked or raw, according to the local custom. [/QUOTE][url="http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/wwoop.htm"]http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/wwoop.htm[/url]
2005-07-20 14:05 | User Profile
Revilo Oliver was an anti-Christian, misanthropic jerk who liked to use pretty unprofessional language in his articles for a "serious scholar" he was advertised to be. Many of his arguments are embarrassingly outdated today.
Petr
2005-07-20 14:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]Revilo Oliver was an anti-Christian, misanthropic jerk who liked to use pretty unprofessional language in his articles for a "serious scholar" he was advertised to be. [/QUOTE]RPO was pro-white; Xianity is anti-white. I can see how a Jew-worshipper like yourself would find his ideas dangerous.
[img]http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/logo.gif[/img] [img]http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/RPO_63smism.jpg[/img]Dr. Revilo Pendleton Oliver is rightly regarded, by those few lucky enough to be familiar with his work, as one of the greatest Americans of this century. Born in 1908, he quickly rose through the ranks of the academy to become one of the leading philologists and classical scholars of his time. He was Professor of the Classics at the University of Illinois, Urbana Campus, for 32 years. He could easily have spent his life cloistered in his study, doing what he loved best: applying the lens of scholarship, focused by his brilliant mind, upon the dusty tomes and manuscripts of the past. But he chose a different path. He saw clearly, and long before most of his countrymen, where the subversive and alien elements were leading his people, and he chose to risk reputation and social position to speak out. From 1954 until his death in August 1994, he worked almost without ceasing for the awakening of Americans of European descent to their danger and their possible great destiny.
[url="http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/wwoop.htm"]http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/wwoop.htm[/url]
2005-07-20 14:41 | User Profile
Revilo Oliver did not sire one single White child into this world. In that sense, many White Christians have done much more for their people than him.
And as far as the scholarship goes, Alex Linder's reckless style clearly had a predecessor in Oliver, who liked to make many brazen assertions (with that patented smug tone of voice of his), like this one in that very article you linked to:
[COLOR=Navy][B][I]"You may search the vast and respectable literature of China in vain for any trace of compassion for suffering per se."[/I][/B][/COLOR]
This kind of stuff sounds cool at first, but when it's easily proven wrong, it becomes a [B]counter-productive [/B] embarrassment. No action can sometimes be better than clumsy action [I]a la [/I] Linder or Oliver.
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Georgia]"[B]The ancient Chinese sage Mencius (4th century BC), much admired by Voltaire, once wrote[/B]:
This is why I say that all men have a sense of commiseration: here is a man who suddenly notices a child about to falI into a well. Invariably he will feel a sense of alarm and compassion. And this is not for the purpose of gaining the favor of the child's parents or of seeking the approbation of his neighbors and friends, or for fear of blame should he fail to rescue it. Thus we see that no man is without a sense of compassion or a sense of shame or a sense of courtesy or a sense of right and wrong. [B]The sense of compassion is the beginning of humanity[/B], the sense of shame is the beginning of righteousness, and sense of courtesy is the beginning of decorum, the sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Every man has within himself these four beginnings, just as he has four limbs. Since everyone has these four beginnings within him, the man who considers himself incapable of exercising them is destroying himself.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[url]http://www.abbc.net/islam/english/books/jewhis/jewhis4.htm[/url]
Petr
2005-07-21 07:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]Revilo Oliver did not sire one single White child into this world.[/QUOTE]Typical Xian ad hominem. How many kids did your mighty Jeebo have? How about Pope Molesto and all his lesser molesters?
[QUOTE] In that sense, many White Christians have done much more for their people than him.[/QUOTE]By preaching a mind-destroying, nation-wrecking, Jew-worshipping universal religion?
[QUOTE]And as far as the scholarship goes, Alex Linder's reckless style clearly had a predecessor in Oliver, who liked to make many brazen assertions (with that patented smug tone of voice of his), like this one in that very article you linked to:
[color=navy]"You may search the vast and respectable literature of China in vain for any trace of compassion for suffering per se."[/color]
This kind of stuff sounds cool at first, but when it's easily proven wrong, it becomes a counter-productive embarrassment. No action can sometimes be better than clumsy action a la Linder or Oliver.[/QUOTE]So now you're on RPO's case for being ungenerous to the pan-faced Chinaman? LOL. Just don't let him near your dog--I doubt he'll let his "compassion" interfere with his favorite delicacy. But good Xian you are you'll have to forgive him...and let millions more of his kind into our lands. To join the all the Bantu, etc. who somehow receive Xian compassion but not "Chinese compassion."
2005-07-21 07:47 | User Profile
[size=+1]ACQUIRED INTELLIGENCE DEFICIENCY[/size]
by Revilo P. Oliver
(Liberty Bell, October 1986)
A special report on Acquired Immunity Deficiency has been compiled by Drs. David A. Noebel, Wayne C. Lutton, and Paul Cameron, and published by Summit Ministries, P.O. Box 207, Manitou Springs, Colorado ($3.95 + $1.25).
The booklet is essentially some 130 pages of classified quotations from many sources, including a large number of men of known scientific accomplishment, on the physiological and social effects of the ever growing epidemic, with notices of the propaganda that is being used to defer public recognition of the imminent peril until it is too late to avert a total collapse of American society into chaos. The scientific opinion cited all confirms the gravity of the epidemic as I have reported it several times in the pages of this periodical.
The quotations that are authoritative make this a very useful book. Some of the editors' recommendations are sound common sense. And one finds here and there a rather astonishing bit of information, e.g., that the Public Health Service in the District of Corruption has not classified the now epidemic infection as a "communicable disease." That is surprising, not because one supposes that the bureaucracy that promotes the poisoning of water supplies with fluorides would show any compassion for the American people, but because it has thus gratuitously shown how viciously corrupt it is.
Unfortunately, the text begins with quotations from the Jew-Book to prove that male homosexuality should be forbidden because old Jesus said, "Mustn't do or Papa spank." And we are told that we gotter "reaffirm" the "Biblical creative order"--a phrase that will remind everyone of the shysters and hallucines who are manufacturing "creation science" and prating about "Holy Shrouds" to shore up a grotesque superstition that is now, in its latest reformations, proving its virulence as the poison that destroyed the spiritual immune system of our race.
Many readers will junk the booklet when they come to "Leviticus" on p. 9, if they did not do so when they saw on p. 7 the opening quotation from "Mark" (i.e. a god's spiel attributed to a certain Marcus and so really anonymous, just as it would be if it were attributed to an otherwise unidentified Bob). Readers who are understandably repelled by this nonsense may never go on to the useful parts of the booklet.
The utter absurdity of this appeal to Yahweh & Son, Inc., and the "Judaeo-Christian ethic" is shown by the fact that since the Fathers of the Church first put over their great promotion, the Christian clergy have always been the principal practitioners of male homosexuality, and this fact was so notorious that the learned Jesuit scholar, Jean Hardouin, came to the conclusion that homosexuality had been invented by the Christians to foster monasticism and encourage priests to celibacy, and that all earlier records of the perversion had been forged by Christians to provide precedents for their innovation in sexual morality.
Some of the early Christian sects, notably the Carpocratians, made male homosexuality a condition of spiritual perfection, and so, in all probability, did the precursors of the Christians, the Essenes. By a nice irony, this booklet takes off from a quotation from the gospel of "Mark," which in an earlier version, to which I have frequently referred in these pages, unmistakably implies homosexual conduct in the Jesus it describes as showing practically naked young men the way to Salvation in the dark. Although that tale was censored by the Fathers of the Church even before it was selected for inclusion in the collection called a "New Testament," some of its homosexual flavor survives in the contempt for women expressed by its Jesus. And one could fill a volume with evidence of the close connection between the Jewish cult for goyim and sexual perversion.
Fortunately, it would be a work of supererogation to cite historical evidence at a time when every week there transpires news of large sums of money paid out by various Christian churches to halt prosecution of their salvation-salesmen, who have been bringing children to Jesus in bed. The holy men's fancy turns mostly to boys near the age of puberty, but some have been convicted of raping children of four and five without committing the sin of sexual discrimination. (On Talmudic authority for this sport, see the late Elizabeth Dilling's The Plot Against Christianity, which has been reprinted, with some editorial changes, under the title, The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today, by the Noontide Press in Torrance, California.)
The cream of the jest, however, is that Summit Ministries, the publishers of this booklet, are a branch of a college founded by a fat hokum-peddler, commonly called Silly James Hoggis, whom many of my readers will recall from the time when he practiced patriotism as a lucrative adjunct of his soul-saving business. The Man of God evangelized with sodomy the young men sent to his Bible college by their gullible Christian parents, occasionally including females for variety in his holy ministrations, until a particularly crude indiscretion precipitated a public scandal, and he was expelled from his college by its trustees. One sympathizes, of course, with an institution that is trying to live down its scabrous past, but the fact is a sufficient commentary on its claim that the tall tales in the Bible in some way inhibit sexual perversion.
Homosexuality has been made so fashionable by the public schools and "educators" whose principal concern is to incite children to copulate early, often, and indiscriminately, thus inculcating the Christian ideals of "Equality" (in proletarian degradation), "All Mankind" (of ovine anthropoids), "One World" (of mindless mongrels), and the evil of recognizing the biological fact of race (which would annoy God's Master Race). The "Liberals'" superstition, it is true, dispenses with the spooks of Christian mythology, but that is merely because such supernaturalism would make ridiculous their pretense that they have a scientific basis for their cult. Intellectually, they are on a par with the "creation scientists," with whom they will join forces, if that should seem expedient. If there is to be any effective opposition to homosexual degeneracy, it must be based, not on the unbelievable mythology which so impaired the Aryan mind as to make the clergy's favorite vice fashionable, but on the rational basis of biological facts joined with the emotional appeal of loyalty to our endangered race. There is, however, a strong probability that reasoned opposition will soon be made unnecessary when the epidemic consequences of the combination of male homosexuality with the basic Christian doctrine of racial equality are made manifest by fifty thousand or a hundred thousand corpses. Perhaps it would be more practical for us to decide what the intelligent remnant of our once dominant race can and should do when all Hell breaks loose.
[url="http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/aids.htm"]http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/aids.htm[/url]
2005-07-21 08:09 | User Profile
[COLOR=Sienna][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "So now you're on RPO's case for being ungenerous to the pan-faced Chinaman? LOL. "[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
Typical [I]ad hominem [/I] strawman that tries - in vain - to cover up the fact that Revilo P. Oliver, whom you guys advertise as a [B]heavyweight scholarly authority [/B] on cultural issues, made an amateurish blunder, and likely made similar ones throughout his writings.
(I could have pointed out many other cases, but this one happened to be in the link that you posted.)
[B][I][FONT=Arial][COLOR=Sienna]- "Just don't let him near your dog--I doubt he'll let his "compassion" interfere with his favorite delicacy. But good Xian you are you'll have to forgive him...and let millions more of his kind into our lands. To join the all the Bantu, etc. who somehow receive Xian compassion but not "Chinese compassion.""[/COLOR][/FONT][/I][/B]
This eloquent style of yours (and that of Oliver) makes it exceedingly easy for jewsmedia to associate White nationalism with low-class behavior.
I mean, how educated scholarly explanation does Oliver give for the spread of homosexuality!
[COLOR=DarkRed][I]"Homosexuality has been made so fashionable by the public schools and "educators" whose principal concern is to incite children to copulate early, often, and indiscriminately, thus inculcating the Christian ideals of "Equality" (in proletarian degradation), "All Mankind" (of ovine anthropoids), "One World" (of mindless mongrels), and the evil of recognizing the biological fact of race (which would annoy God's Master Race). "[/I][/COLOR]
OK, I got it. Homosexuality is actually a [B]Christianity's [/B] fault.
Petr
2005-07-21 08:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Stigmata]By preaching a mind-destroying, nation-wrecking, Jew-worshipping universal religion?[/QUOTE]
Being in my position I guess it really shouldn't surprise me anymore, but sometimes it just boggles my mind how some people come to think so twisted and evil. To think of someone so devoid of love makes my heart sink, really.
2005-07-21 17:34 | User Profile
It's nice that Stigmata posted one more scribble from Revilo P. Oliver.
It gives me another opportunity to show how unscholarly Oliver was, light-years away from professionals like Kevin MacDonald or David Irving (who also somehow managed to make their un-PC points without his puerile tone of voice).
[FONT=Courier New][COLOR=Purple][FONT=Book Antiqua][B][I] - "Many readers will junk the booklet when they come to "Leviticus" on p. 9, if they did not do so when they saw on p. 7 the opening quotation from "Mark" (i.e. a god's spiel attributed to a certain Marcus and so really anonymous, just as it would be if it were attributed to an otherwise unidentified Bob). Readers who are understandably repelled by this nonsense may never go on to the useful parts of the booklet."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT]
Oliver is being crudely ungrateful - he spits on Christians like Noebel, Lutton and Cameron, all the while appropriating their research work. He is also behaving like boorish egomaniac, thinking how people [I]must[/I] react to one or two Bible quotations as narrow-mindedly as he personally did - like a vampire reacts to holy waters...
[FONT=Courier New][FONT=Book Antiqua][COLOR=Purple][B][I] - "The utter absurdity of this appeal to Yahweh & Son, Inc., and the "Judaeo-Christian ethic" is shown by the fact that since the Fathers of the Church first put over their great promotion, the Christian clergy have always been the principal practitioners of male homosexuality, and this fact was so notorious that the learned Jesuit scholar, Jean Hardouin, came to the conclusion that homosexuality had been invented by the Christians to foster monasticism and encourage priests to celibacy, and that all earlier records of the perversion had been forged by Christians to provide precedents for their innovation in sexual morality." [/I] [/B] [/COLOR] [/FONT][/FONT]
This one I did not immediately pick out - perhaps because I could hardly believe that even Oliver would try to claim something like this. Oliver is at least strongly[I] implying [/I] something truly laughable here (without fully committing himself, just using the "he-said-so" formula without making any comments to the contrary, a sneaky form of slander).
[SIZE=3]Was Oliver arguing that [I]all ancient descriptions of pagan homosexuality were just wicked fabrications of Christians[/I], those true inventors of the vice? PLEASE. [/SIZE]
The utter childishness of this claim is all the more grotesque since Oliver was supposed to be "[I]one of the leading philologists and [B]classical scholars [/B] of his time[/I]"!
(And I would like to see a direct quotation from Hardouin anyways, rather than what unreliable Oliver tells about him...)
[FONT=Courier New][COLOR=Purple][FONT=Book Antiqua][B][I] - "Some of the early Christian sects, notably the Carpocratians, made male homosexuality a condition of spiritual perfection, and so, in all probability, did the precursors of the Christians, the Essenes." [/I] [/B] [/FONT] [/COLOR] [/FONT]
Here Oliver displays some fundamentally unscholarly [B]dishonesty[/B], by calling Carpocratians (his only concrete example) as a "Christian sect" without any qualifications.
(This would be equivalent of calling Scientologists as "Christians" just because these tend to use cross as a symbol:
[url]http://www.scientology.org/[/url]
Like them, Carpocratians were essentially a syncretistic pagan cult, covered with a very light splash of Christian terminology (like also voodoo, btw).
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial]"(Carpocrates') teachings rested upon a Platonic basis, and were interspersed with Christian ideas. According to Iren浳 (H?r., i. 25), supplemented here and there by Epiphanius (H?r., xxvii.), he taught that in the beginning was the divine primitive source, "the father of all," "the one beginning " (Gk. arche).[B] Angels[/B][B], far removed from this source, have created the world.[/B] The world-builders have imprisoned in bodies the fallen souls, who originally worked with God, and now have to go through every form of life and every act to regain their freedom. [B]To accomplish this a long series of transmigrations through the bodies is needed[/B].
... The Carpocratians rendered divine honor to Jesus as to the other secular sages (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle). They claimed for themselves the power of ruling the world-builders: magic arts, exorcism, philters and love-potions, dreams and cures were at their command, and like other secret societies they had a special mark of recognition, which they burned with a hot iron on the back of the lobe of the right ear.
... [B]At all events, Carpocratianism can not be called Christianity[/B]."[/FONT][/COLOR]
[url]http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.vi.cxxxv.htm[/url]
So, Oliver just blatantly [B]lied[/B] about early Christians and slandered them.
[FONT=Courier New][FONT=Book Antiqua][COLOR=Purple][B][I] - "By a nice irony, this booklet takes off from a quotation from the gospel of "Mark," which in an earlier version, to which I have frequently referred in these pages, unmistakably implies homosexual conduct in the Jesus it describes as showing practically naked young men the way to Salvation in the dark. Although that tale was censored by the Fathers of the Church even before it was selected for inclusion in the collection called a "New Testament," some of its homosexual flavor survives in the contempt for women expressed by its Jesus." [/I] [/B] [/COLOR] [/FONT] [/FONT]
Oh goody. So Oliver is was fond of confidently referring to the infamous "Secret Gospel of Mark". Nice to see that he was being so scrupulously critical scholar (heavy sarcasm). He was actually uncritically repeating an anti-Christian slander made up by Morton Smith, a [B]Jew[/B]!
[COLOR=DarkOliveGreen][FONT=Georgia]""At the 1960 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature Morton Smith reported that he had discovered a previously unknown epistle of Clement of Alexandria, in which was imbedded two fragments of a 'Secret Gospel of Mark'. It was not until 1973 that the text, along with Smith's translation and notes, was finally published. Smith claims that in 1958 while cataloguing the holdings of the library of the ancient monastery of Mar Saba he came upon this epistle, quite by chance, copied onto the back page and inside cover of a seventeenth-century edition of the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch. [B]No one besides Smith has actually seen the letter, though Thomas Talley reports being told in 1980 by authorities at the monastery that the pages in question had 'been removed from the printed volume [of Ignatius]' for repair. No one outside of the monastery has seen these pages[/B]."[SHJ:526]
The manuscript has not, therefore, been subjected to the normal and necessary rigors of scholarly and scientific verification. Consequently, some scholars doubt the authenticity of the discovery [TN: footnote cites Skehan, Brown, Quesnell]. [B]Jacob Neusner, who knew the late Professor Smith as well as anyone, has recently described this writing as 'the forgery of the century'. [/B] That this epistle apparently (and conveniently) lends a measure of support to Smith's controversial contention that Jesus was a magician, perhaps even a homosexual, only adds to the suspicion that this Clementine epistle may wel be a fake." [SHJ:526-527]
...
[B]Summary:
The manuscript itself is highly questionable.
The ascription of the MSS to Clement is highly questionable.
The views of Clement on 'secret gospels' is not very credible.
The Secret Gospel of Mark looks strangely like the 2nd century gnostic 'expansions' and conflation of the canonical gospels.
The data in the SGOM does not support some alleged homosexual practice of Jesus! [/B] [/FONT] [/COLOR]
[url]http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qbadmark.html[/url]
[COLOR=Sienna][B]"Recent work by Stephen C. Carlson (to be published by Baylor University Press in November 2005) suggests the work is a forgery which Morton Smith undertook after reading an early-1940s novel in which an Englishman finds a letter at Mar Saba denying the resurrection of Christ."[/B][/COLOR]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark[/url]
Petr