…. that in the end asks, “Who will bell the cat”.
Who was it who decided that children were an option for the lazy and the stupid?
Who was it decided that the God of our fathers shall have no dominion over me?
Who was it decided we shall hide our lights under a bushel basket?
Which mental midget amongst us sits bestride the backs of giants and dares imagine, we are loftier than they?
We have sown the breeze and are now reaping the whirlwind should we be surprised?
Its not the Muslim’s fault. They are but the whet stone being used to hone us that we might actually stand for something and do something and be someone who matters.
Don’t try to reform them. We must try reform ourselves and having done so see how quickly they fall.
The Islamic faith is one that dwells in fear loathing and ignorance. We only strengthen it when we deal in the same.
Thank you, Joe. It’s comments like this that make the blogging effort worthwhile.
Don’t have time for a theoretical discussion but wanted to throw these two cents in. Judeo-Christian doctrines have basically created the “Western World” it has taken in excess over two thousand years to accomplish this. Two thousand years of change, adaptation, evolving. It has only been in the last two hundred years that women are on the verge of achieving equality in the west. We stopped burning heritics about six hundred years ago. We’ve come a long way and perhaps it all came about because we have been able to evolve our way of thinking about our beliefs. However Islam has not evolved because Islam forbids the freedom to interpert and evolve the books of the Koran. Muslims are steeped in the lifestyle of 1400 years ago, they are stuck in a bigone era and haven’t been allowed to evolve, and are resentful of the west for a lifestyle that they have not made, and indeed are unwilling to make, the sacrifices that the west has made to attain our position in the world. Probably the latest step on the “Western” evolutionary ladder is a book called “The Pagan Christ”, it was written a couple of years ago by a theologian, I think his name is Tom Harpur. This is an example of why “Western” society will eventually overcome all hardships because we, as a society, are allowed to think and speak freely and because of this ideas and ideals can flourish and spread.
Couldn’t be. Intellectuals that support Joe’s insight?
“Does Culture Play a Role in Poverty?”
Laina Farhat-Holzman, Ph.D.
A common view is that poverty is the fruit of colonialism and exploitation and the cure is to distribute the wealth from the haves to the have-nots. The World Bank states that countries, through enacting intelligent government policies, can soon bootstrap from backward to being developed. But one of America’s best economists, Robert J. Samuelson disagrees: culture, he says, is the main factor in determining wealth or poverty.
Lawrence Harrison of Tufts University agrees. By culture, he means the beliefs and practices that are learned and enforced, not intrinsic human ability, which does not differ from place to place. The United States is peopled by immigrants from hopelessly backward places who have thrived in this culture where they could not in their homelands.
Another economist, Gregory Clark, also agrees. In his book “A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World,” he states that most of the world’s remaining poverty is pretty much permanent. Just pushing a policy of open markets, secure property rights, sound money, and anti-corruption does not mean that cultures hostile to these values will carry out such policies, and their plight has worsened over time. The gap between rich and poor nations in 1800 was a ratio of 4:1; today it is 50:1.
Clark notes that before 1800, most societies were stagnant and people lived much as did their ancestors in the Stone Age. Economic growth (and all the good things that have come with it) only began in England in 1800. Why England and why not China or Japan, both of which in 1800 were at the same level of development as England? The answer, he says, was the emergence of middle class values (hard work, sobriety, ingenuity, patience, and education). Max Weber (1864-1920), who wrote “Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic,” convincingly attributed this change to these Protestant values.
Historically, changing cultural habits is usually a bloody business. Most humans fear change, thinking the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. England’s culture changed during the deadly competition between the values of Catholicism and Protestantism. What people believed mattered to England’s rulers to the extent of executing those with the “wrong” set of beliefs. Protestantism, unlike the Catholicism of the day, promoted literacy; hard work as a virtue, not a curse; merchant (middle class) urban economy rather than aristocratic feudal agronomy; and, of course, industrialization.
It is unpopular today to recognize the salutary benefit of the right kind of religion in shaping a people, but it was demonstrated by England and its later colonies, particularly the United States. For centuries, it has been the teaching of parents that has produced children with these values, which became inbred even after church-going and religious domination declined. That is (at least until now) our prevailing culture.
But what of those countries dominated by tribal, religious, ideological or political practices that dislike the middle class values that we espouse? What happens to a country such as Saudi Arabia when oil money no longer fuels their semi-welfare theocracy? Where is the willingness to work with one’s hands and the cultivation of literacy and talent from all citizens, male and female, to come from? When militant Islam dreams of a world dominated by them, in which all other cultures will (after conquest) support their idleness, where do modern values fit in?
China and Japan (and finally India) have demonstrated that they do not fear adopting modern Western values in developing their societies. They are succeeding, but the Muslim world and Sub-Sahara Africa are not. They eventually will learn this, but it will be a slow process – and undoubtedly bloody. Throwing money at it will not help.
‘I think I was quite on track, perhaps just not your track.’~ sheldon
A series of false innuendos and insults was ‘right on track’?
Your error, and it is a profound error, is to assume that an atheist has no conscience.
Of course atheists have a conscience. They just don’t know what to do about it.
ET, I agree that Islam must reform…but the bigger question is how will it do so? How do you re-interpret the sections of the islamic texts that say death to infidels?
Christianity reformed itself because the text of the Bible WAS being misinterpreted and the text of the Bible preached tolerance, love, compassion and forgiveness. If the islamic texts do not teach the same tenets but demand “death to infidels”, then it is unreformable.
Try as I might, I cannot make a tree to be a vegetable. The tree is unreformable. The tree can be made to take on a different shape or colour or other characteristics, but it cannot be made to be a vegetable. If you make a tree a vegetable, then it is no longer a tree.
That is like saying you want to reform Christians such that they do not believe in Christ. As soon as you do that, they are no longer Christians…you have to destroy their belief in their faith and their texts.
Show me how the passages in the Islamic texts have been misinterpreted and what the more correct (peaceful, tolerant) interpretation is and then you might be able to say that Islam can/must be reformed. Otherwise, your basic premise is incorrect…and the only choice is to destroy or contain the religion.
Atheist certainly do have a conscience. It could not be otherwise: the world has been awash in religion since long before fire was discovered. Anyone who is an atheist today, has been influenced their entire lives by religion. Just as people of Faith have been influenced in various ways by atheists.
If we ever meet a true atheistic society out in the Universe, I suspect they’ll scare the beJesus out of the atheists we know. Not to mention, Us 😛
“Do people also already know how not to do wrong?”
Er, if it isn’t mine I don’t take it… etc.
Religion helps those who are not able to “get it” on their own. I don’t have that problem. It’s not that I don’t like religion, I just don’t have a need for it in MY life. If it works for you, good.
ET,
I congratulate you on the obvious level of notoriety you have acheived on this site.
I have made similar statements regarding Islam to your own,only to be dismissed as some leftist and told to go home.
Please allow me to repeat a Michael Coren quote I posted a few threads back that I was subsequently attacked for.
“Only a bigot would argue that every Muslim was violent or opposed to Western freedom. But only a coward or a liar would argue that there was not a profound and deeply worrying link between conservative Islam and myriad acts of terror, intolerance and hysterical anger.”
I congratulate you on having achieved a similarly balanced viewpoint.
The fact is,we are currently surrounded by legions of muslims in Canada.We had damn sure better learn how to help and motivate them to eliminate the radicalism in their midst,because the alternative is too ugly to even contemplate.
Think about it.
teddy,
Coren is correct. But a Muslim, good or bad, is not the root of the ideology. The ideology is.
It is the ideology as stated in their texts and literally, if not correctly, preached and taught that causes extremism. And will continue to do so, as it has for the last 1400 years.
Muslims must be forced to confront and rationally think about what their texts command them to do, without the lies and obfuscation. They must also judge the moral character of their prophet, in truth.
Eeyore,
And then what to do about the prophet that they are commanded to emulate?
What many fail to understand is that Islam is exactly the opposite of Christianity, in every way, including their prophets actions and words, as told in the Sira (bio of Mo) and Hadith (actions and words of Mo).
colin and warwick – very astute observations.
irwin daisy – please calm your instant anger. I said – IF I UNDERSTAND him correctly”. Instead of reacting to this, and clarifying, you instantly accuse me of lying. Your post above, re Chamberlain, was in favour of war!
Blackbird answered my question, with the answer of educating us (and therefore, inadvertently Muslims). I think that’s right but I think that we have to openly state to the Islamic nations and groups, that we reject their rejection of reason, equality, democracy, etc – and that in our nations, such beliefs cannot be the rule.
Irwin – are you serious? Who is going to examin the koran, hadith etc as ‘hate literature’? You are setting up a bomb! It is the Muslims themselves who have to examine their texts. Not us. We can certainly read them and critique them, but our govt cannot ‘examine them as hate literature’! That would be like Saudi Arabia or Iran examining the bible as hate literature.
As for stopping immigration, I think that’s impossible, because it generalizes. It says that ALL people in X-country are unacceptable. What if they want to come here because they want freedom from such beliefs? Instead, we have to insist that any and all immigrants accept that in our country, we have non-negotiable axioms and that under no circumstances can these be rejected. This also means the end of multiculturalism and the Human rights Act.
antenor – I fully agree; the fact that the West has, as one of its basic axioms, the insistence on self-examination, the use of reason and debate -is why the West will triumph. BUT, multiculturalism and political correctness and the left – are threats to this vital base of western culture.
irwin daisy – your post on Harrison and Clark – was great! Exactly right.
eeyore – the Islamic people themselves must reform and reinterpret their religion. There are Islamic scholars who are now debating their texts and insisting that the Wahhabi and fundamentalist sects are wrong; that the translations are wrong, etc. There are some very good journals publishing this kind of work.
To borrow Reagan’s debating line with Carter,
“There you go again, ET.”
I don’t know, “Jews, the sons of apes and pigs” (Qur’an: Suras 2:62-65, 5:59-60, and 7:166), sounds like hate speech to me. Not you?
Er, if it isn’t mine I don’t take it… etc.
I wouldn’t have wanted to be around you before you figured that out. Or were you born knowing that?
I am so glad that the Ontario which so many here seem delighted to bash still supports a Catholic school system.
Last night, I attended my daughters’ school’s Christmas celebration. There were the usual skits and songs – some of which were quite funny – but there was also a series of quite beautiful readings that reinforced the meaning of Christmas and the message of Jesus. I’m not ashamed to say this responsive reading brought tears to my eyes, as over 800 people of all different races but one faith repeated:
Where there are the hungy and homeless,
Let us give them food and shelter.
Where there are the sick and wounded,
Let us give them comfort and care.
Where there are the lost and lonely,
Let us give them friendship and company.
Where there is despair,
Let us give them hope.
Where there is sorrow,
Let us give them joy.
Where there is ignorance,
Let us give them the wisdom of Christ.
Let us do this in the name of God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
In Ontario’s public school system, such a recitation would be unthinkable. My friends with kids in the public school say their bland “Winter Celebrations” are filled with skits and songs, but there’s no mention at all of Christmas or Jesus. It’s all good fun, but there’s no emotion at all.
When my 11-year old saw the tears running down my cheek, she silently reached over and took my hand. That small, simple gesture spoke volumes to me, and it would never have occured at one of these value-free “Winter Celebrations”. I’m grateful for that moment, and I will never forget it.
Merry Christmas to all.
lookout: An Excellent very DEFT post on Joe (yeah I remember those exchanges). Yes, Joe’s seemingly a fine man with some fine rhetoric BUT … a bit too sentimental for my palate.
I’m in the investment biz. There are short term and long term considerations. Joe is good on the long term. But we need tough, unsentimental, assertive short term action NOW. Immigration (if not ending Muslim immigration at least from countries that are clear state sponsors of islamofascism), free speech, severe restriction of foreign financing of mosques and university ME studies departments, student visas (35000 Saudi student visa in the US!). And etc.
As been around the block has pointed out elsewhere, recovering our cultural mojo (Warwick?) is a multi-generational project
ET: Interacting with a billion muslims? Not really! It’s the Islamofascist vanguard we need to deal with — CRUSH. That’s a big but much smaller number. In The Black Book of Communistm I read that there were only a few thousand Bolshevik party members. Most Muslims are cultural muslims of identity with only the faintest notion of the details of Islam. Crush the vanguard and those Muslims will be fine.
Despite Joe’s piety and pretty rhetoric, I find the phrase “It’s not the Muslims’ fault” deeply disturbing and, frankly Joe, DEPRESSING.
ET: I’m 105% with you on your restatement that ethics/morality do not require Godliness. I too consider myself an atheist and a man of high integrity, and there’ll be no death bed or fox-hole conversion my end. And from your many fine and eloquent posts your morality and high ethcis ring loud and clear.
And if I didn’t consider ol hoss a theocratic bore, I’d be angry. Interesting how differently I feel about some of our other devout Christian posters here, like lookout and been around the block whom I greatly admire and respect.
To: Lookout!! As I repeat “Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa,” I am flagellating myself with a “Cat ‘O nine tails.” Does that satisfy your Christian ego!! You sick f$%?&
I once had an English professor who liked to say that one can’t live in a Christian country, eat Christian bread and breathe Christian air without being in some sense a Christian. In a very different context, that is called the “anti-Semitism of things.”
For those involved in the atheism vs. Christianity debate, may I offer this lighthearted look at “cultural Christianity” and the legacy of Christian civilisation?
Libby Purves, God rest you merry atheist
But the really fabulous news I mentioned is that Richard Dawkins, Prophet of Atheism, has said in a BBC interview that he is not against “cultural” Christianity and “Yes, I like singing carols along with everyone else”. Which raises enough tantalising philosophical and ethical questions to keep us going till Christmas Eve…The point is that he obligingly raises the more general question of how the unbeliever, the half-believer and the ex-believer should treat the cultural heritage of Christianity, especially at Christmas.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article3065649.ece
This has been a pretty good conversation on here today. However the left could have contirbuted it’s 2 cents worth and maybe we could have had something really positve come out of this even more so than what has already been accomplished.
Alas the left is represented by Sheldon and this Johnny J guy. If this is what passes for intellect on the left may God save us. These guys make Cherniak look like an intellectual giant and thats scary.
“Kate-…. It seems your readers sure know a lot about my political views, my education and where I live from my short comment.”
* Yes, Sheldon, we at the anti-Sheldon Levin site know all about you!
“In the future I’ll try to post only comments which reflect the views of this site.”
*Thanks, that would go a long way and help a lot!
“Hopefully I won’t strike another nerve by putting my ideas in words.”
* Ouch! Got funny-bone elbow! Struck another nerve! Ouch!!!
“Your devoted admirer, Sheldon.”
* OK, I made this last bit up.
Yes, that line forms on the right, Kate
Now that Sheldon’s — back in town !!!!
KevinB at 2pm: great quote. Our son’s “Winterval” celebration at his public school consists of bland dirges extolling multiculturalism and multifaithism, including what I would loosely describe as “Gaiaism”.
Suprisingly, the nativity police are usually not practioners of any mainstream faith. As any Jews, Muslims, or Hindus I have ever met have never mentioned having their faith “damaged” by hearing Christmas Carols in the local mall.
Most nativity police members are white, slightly angry, Canada born liberals with a vague grudge against Christian theology and culture. The “concern” for those of non-Christian faiths acting as a cover for their bigotry.
Kevin B., amen!
“Joes is saying that we only strengthen Islam when we deal in ‘fear, loathing and ignorance’. Of ourselves? Of them? Of both?”
Posted by: ET at December 18, 2007 11:36 AM
ET…you usually post great arguments here,but when it comes to Islam and tribalism(which are one and the same in their brutality)you seem to lose it.
Do you know longer recognize satire when it involves your pet project of “reforming” Islam?They can only be “reformed” the same way as the Nazis and Imperial Japan were reformed. And please don’t cite Russia.All the commies there and their supporters are now on the AGW bandwagon.Another wonderful commie/socialist one world government scheme.
Lookout~ I think you may have actually struck the one intelligent nerve jayjay had- now it’s dead. tsk.
Here is the fable Joe mentioned that started all of this:
http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?1&BellingtheCat&&bellcat2.ram
justthinkin – I disagree.
Tribalism and Islam are not “the same in their brutality”.
Tribalism in its basic form is exactly right, as a social, economic and political mode of organization for a no-growth medium size economy/population. The problem now is that the Islamic states have moved into industrialism, and their populations have exponentially increased. BUT – their leaders refused to allow the devt of a middle class and a civic mode of social/economic and political organization. So now, it’s a dysfunctional, degenerate tribalism.
Islam was developed as an ideology supporting that original mode of tribalism, BUT, a mode that was at the time (7th c) extremely stressed, economically, by the expansion of the Byzantine settlements into tribal lands.
I think it helps to understand the economic, demographic and political reasons for the emergence of an ideology.
Nazism wasn’t reformed. Ever. You can’t reform fascism! It either exists or doesn’t exist. Same with Islamic fascism (which is not the same as Islam). WWII effectively stopped fascist control of Europe.
Imperial Japan was different from Nazism. Imperial Japan was, like the ME, operating in an ancient tribal mode that was not suitable for a population moving into industrialism. The old guard was fighting to retain this old system. When the old guard lost, the emergence, finally, of a Japanese middle class enabled Japan to rapidly industrialize.
As for Russia, I don’t see your point. But, Russia (and China) were in a similar problem; they were politically, economically and socially, operating in a peasant mode – unsuited to industrialism. The only way to rapidly transform a population from one ideology to another (peasant agriculture to industrial) is by force. By revolution.
The West took over 400 years to make this transition, and it was a vicious brutal 400 years.
How to do it in only one generation, 50 years? By even more force and violence – hence the communist revolutions.
Both Russia and China are now moving out of the utopianism of socialism, and into capitalism.
No, AGW is not a ‘communist plot’ of Russians. Or Chinese. But it most certainly is a socialist or communist ideology. These utopian ideologies will always be around, and we’ll always have to fight them.
ET you should try reading the collected works of marx. you will discover that AGW is along with the take over of the education system just part and parcel of the Russian takeover of the planet.
“No, AGW is not a ‘communist plot’ of Russians. Or Chinese. But it most certainly is a socialist or communist ideology. These utopian ideologies will always be around, and we’ll always have to fight them.
Posted by: ET at December 18, 2007 4:39 PM ”
In part I agree with what you said.My point is,once the Berlin Wall came down,and Russia started moving towards democracy(although they are slowly sliding back to dictatorship under Putin),the socialists/communists had to hang their hat on some other one-world government,and AGW,thanks to useful idiots like Gore,Suziki,etc.,provided this platform for them.
We will always be fighting some form of one-world government,disguised under the term “Utopia”.
As to tribalism vs Islamofascism,I see no difference. Total control no matter what the way.In other words,the “end justifies the means”.
ET
You keep forgetting to post me those links that talk about “incursions of Byzantines into tribal lands” being the thrust behind Mohammeds construction of Islam…why is that?
There are large chunks in your knowledge of Islam that are just not right ET no matter how dismissive you are about that. It is a shame because you are incisive and insightful on some things and then it falls apart with factual error. Like I said earlier (and you seemed to agree to ) education about Mohammed and Islam are crucial to understanding, disarming and defeating Islam.
Me No Dhimmi – Thank you for your kind remarks, which I appreciate very much. I altogether respect your intelligence, goodwill, and knowledge.
Re Christianity: you, like many others here whom I respect, and John Mortimer (of Rumpole fame and beyond) appreciate the cultural and societal benefits of Christianity. However, the peace, order, rule of law, concept of equality, and good government of the West did not come at no cost. Think of people like William Wilberforce. (Jesus too!)
I remember exactly where I was when I read Mortimer’s praise of cultural Christianity, which he thinks is a very good thing for a just, well ordered society, while eschewing its substance. My husband and I were in our car on a sunny, snowy day out in the country. I said, “Listen to this,” and read Mortimer’s comments. I was really annoyed. “Freeloader!” I thought—and said!!
Please forgive me if it seems ungracious to bring this up, but, to be honest, to appreciate the fruits of Christianity while, as I said above, eschewing its substance, is a problem for me. (To be sure, much less of a problem than those who deny the centrality of Christianity to the fruits of the West.)
Practically, the large scale turning of our backs on our faith has made us a more selfish, “what my autonomous self wants is what I plan to get” people. It’s also made us both less willing to sacrifice, as well as able to discern what’s worth our sacrifice. We now have a whole set of generations who say, “Hell no. We won’t . . .” ’Won’t do much of anything other than what they see as benefiting themselves. G.K. Chesterton (may God bless him) wrote “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” He’s about right.
This is very bad news, when one considers the religious ardour of our Muslim opponents. As for the West, we’ve pretty well spent our moral capital—the Judeo-Christian dispensation—which has not only meant that we’ve become an increasingly crass and indulgent society, but one that has neither the will nor the guts to fight back. In his book, The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis writes, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.” What a precise—like a scalpel—description of our insipid, morally bankrupt, mult-culti, dumbed down pap of a culture.
MND, you’re certainly not one of the men without chests—by God’s grace (I believe!) and being around when there was considerably more moral capital in the societal bank—but the generations after you, living on the very edges of the civilized world—right here, in Canada, I’m not making this up!—are not so lucky. And, as we slide into barbarism and another dark age, neither are any of us.
(For anyone who thinks paganism beats out Christianity, check out the fine HBO series, “Rome”. The rituals and morals of this age, with its partisanship, immorality, and sudden, arbitrary death, by murder, just around the corner was an eye opener—and horrifying. The no-doubt agnostic makers of the series ADMITTED that it was centuries later that Christianity finally put a stop to the degradation and arbitrary and extreme violence regularly portrayed in the series.)
MND, I’ve said this not to offend, but to point out a sad paradox. Appreciating the fruits of the Judeo-Christian tradition is certainly better than not. However, how does it prop up the very foundation of a society, which now has termites of all kinds? This is a conundrum.
And I think that Joe’s idea about Christianity is very fine, but soft-headed. I think we need soft hearts, but very hard heads. Even Jesus angrily threw the money lenders out of the temple.
lookout: Not offended in the slightest and in truth I can’t refute your argument. In fact, it’s an interior argument than runs though my fevered brain quite a lot of the time. Am I a free-loader? (that’s a very good term that appeals to my economic mind!). And believe me I like your muscular Christianity vs. Joe’s softheadedness!
In fact, I often wondered about, say, ET’s uprbringing. Whether it too was Christian? And whether or not it’s possible for her, or me, to disassociate our ethics/morals from that upbringing? Even Richard Dawkins, who apparently likes singing Christmans carols and approves of cultural Christianity.
I’ve mentioned this before — and now’s a good time to re-mention it — when I listen to those great Bach masses and oratorios, I can’t escape the sense that this highest of high art could not have come to fruition without belief in a higher power which some call God, some, like Vitruvius, call “existence”.
Please forgive me if it seems ungracious to bring this up, but, to be honest, to appreciate the fruits of Christianity while, as I said above, eschewing its substance, is a problem for me.
They’re followers who, like the Laodiceans, are neither hot nor cold. Merely lukewarm.
Revelation 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Revelation 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Nazism wasn’t reformed. Ever. You can’t reform fascism! It either exists or doesn’t exist. Same with Islamic fascism (which is not the same as Islam). WWII effectively stopped fascist control of Europe.
Yes it IS!
Women will yet save us from Islam. Muslim and ex-Muslim women!
Two very brave women Wafa Sultan and Ayann Hirsi Ali beg us — from the heart and from heart-breaking experience — to not add qualifiers to Islam — moderate, extreme, policial, militant, fascistic, et al. They tell us that Islam is Islam, pure and simple. The fact that 10s of millions of Muslims are merely cultural muslims who don’t know the details of their “religion”, or who may not follow all its tenets — like say lapsed Catholics — matters not one wit. Islam is Islam. Islam is Fascism.
And as discussed many times before Islamofascists do nothing that is not commanded in the Koran/Hadith/Sira. Nothing.
stopped fascist control of Europe
CRUSHED IT. CRUSHED GERMANY. We didn’t try to distinguish moderate Germans from extreme Germans. We crushed Nazism. We destroyed their morale. We made it a dreaded thing for all Germans. We made Germans regret that they ever heard of Nazism. We didn’t do this in Iraq. We helped them install sharia law!
A man has been arrested in Kitchener for murdering the 74 year-old man that was delivering Chrisrmas cards. I am not 100% positive about this but from the sketch released and the fact that he has attacked another while yelling anti god sentiments,I think he may be from the ‘religion of peace’. His name hasn’t been released but don’t be surprised if mohammed is one of them, The bastards,time to wake up Canada.
I am neither hot nor cold, Hoss, because I have a moral thermostat. I don’t consider existence to be “higher power”, MND, it just is. And I appreciate, Lookout, your sense of substance; while I don’t subscribe to it, I am in favour of freedom of belief (except in self defense, of course).
My tradition is Judeo-Christian. I went to Catholic high school. There, we took a three year course, three hours a week, that was called Christian Doctrine, but should have been called comparative religion. We studied the histories of all religions.
I think all children should be well versed in comparative religion. Then, when they are adults, they can demarcate their own beliefs based on knowledge, not superstition. I don’t subscribe to the diety concept. I do subscribe to many of the common humane traditions of many theologies, in particular Judeo-Christianity. As I’ve said before, I’m a-deist, not a-theist.
If anyone thinks I’m evil because of my rejection of the deity concept, that’s their business (except in self defense, of course). Meanwhile, I will continue to try to live my life according to my understanding of the classic theological notions of good, whether you think I’m evil or not. Your opinion isn’t that important to me.
“Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought: to philosophy and theology.”
— Pope Benedict XVI
Further readings are available here: http://www.iep.utm.edu
Free – marx has nothing to do with AGW.
Blackbird – as I’ve said before, read the historical analyses of Patricia Crone and her references for the Byzantine incursion into tribal lands.
Lookout, I don’t think that Christianity put an end to violence. I’d also suggest that you read works by such as Cicero – and Aristotle, for an understanding of just how rational, and moral, ‘the pagans’ were.
me no dhimmi – I agree with the magnificence os music – how about both Ave Maria’s (Schubert and Bach)…but that doesn’t lead me to a conclusion of ‘god’. Just ‘mind’ or ‘universal reason’.
And no, I don’t agree that Islamic fascism is the same as Islam. Islam, in itself, requires reform and modernization. Islamic fascism must be defeated as must all fascisms.
Lookout. Very insightful post. As usual.
“They can only be “reformed” the same way as the Nazis and Imperial Japan were reformed.”
The similarities to Shintoism. Good point, Justthinkin.
ET,
“So now, it’s a dysfunctional, degenerate tribalism.”
As opposed to a functional, degenerate tribalism, ie. the Uthman caliphate, the Ottoman empire, etc?
“I think it helps to understand the economic, demographic and political reasons for the emergence of an ideology.”
Perhaps so. However, the “emergence” does not explain it’s economic, patriotic and spiritual strength through the centuries and therefore does not offer anything of value in terms of what to do about it. In other words, so what?
“You can’t reform fascism!”
Agreed.
“Same with Islamic fascism (which is not the same as Islam).”
That’s a mighty backend statement. Now provide the evidence.
“Imperial Japan was, like the ME, operating in an ancient tribal mode that was not suitable for a population moving into industrialism.”
Rubish. Japan was obviously highly industrialized and very advanced at the time. As stated earlier, Shintoism is very similar to Islam, including the use of the suicide bomber.
“When the old guard lost, the emergence, finally, of a Japanese middle class enabled Japan to rapidly industrialize.”
How did they lose ET? And who was it that enabled their middle class? The fruits of which were certainly not spontaneous industrialization. They already had that.
“Like I said earlier (and you seemed to agree to ) education about Mohammed and Islam are crucial to understanding, disarming and defeating Islam.”
BL@KBIRD has you cornered, ET. You have agreed that it is the ideology, rather than the demographic, economic and sociopolitical environment in which Islam emerged, non-argument you purport. You might also add ‘spiritual’ to your emergence explanation, for the little it matters.
This has not and is not happening in a petrie dish. Hundreds of millions have been killed directly because of the foundationally violent ideology of Islam.
MND, I can’t tell you how relieved I am at your gracious response. I’m not surprised—you “get” my language!—but. . . Bless you, and I know you won’t mind my saying that!! Phew . . .
There is no easy way out of this. One cannot legislate belief—God forbid—though our HRCs try. Faith is a gift: by grace, I’ve had a belief in Jesus all my life, that I’ve been aware. That is a mystery! Except for knowing my own weakness and need for grace, my Christian faith is far from easy or automatic: daily, I have all kinds of doubts about all kinds of things, and many obligations, which I believe are good for me—others too, I hope. The reality and sacrifice of Jesus is the truth that grounds me.
BTW, as I know you know, my faith does not include the false gospel of NICE. (Beautifully, in C.S. Lewis’s science fiction trilogy, this acronym for an evil utopian community stands for “National Institute of Coordinated Experiments”!)
So what connects us that may be a way forward? I think it is rationalism. And, when I see the state of the body politic in this 21st century, I believe I see far less common sense, knowledge, and thoughtfulness than we did in the West when Christianity had more influence.
Kyrie eleison.
Thank you, irwin daisy. I always appreciate your intelligent, knowledgeable, no-nonsense posts.
ET, I appreciate all kinds of things you say but you niggardliness towards Christianity is unattractive and ungracious in the extreme. E.g., I did not say, “Christianity put an end to violence”. Be fair.
irwin daisy said:
Perhaps so. However, the “emergence” does not explain it’s economic, patriotic and spiritual strength through the centuries and therefore does not offer anything of value in terms of what to do about it. In other words, so what?
Now there it is! Exactly what I thought after another fruitful exchange about Orientalism with ET but decided not to post out of a fear of appearing disingenuous.
And that I think is the nub of much of the debate on this issue. ET is a natural born scholar who aches to get to the bottom of things. Others are of a more practical bent — more prosaic — wanting to know how to deal with a clear and present danger for which a knowledge of ecology, agricultrue and ancient economics will be of no help for the grave task at hand.
ET: Music. Yeah, I know. But somehow I can’t see Bach rising to those heights on a universal idea — without a belief in a real personal God.
MND,
“CRUSHED IT. CRUSHED GERMANY. We didn’t try to distinguish moderate Germans from extreme Germans. We crushed Nazism. We destroyed their morale. We made it a dreaded thing for all Germans. We made Germans regret that they ever heard of Nazism.”
As Ghengis Khan did to the Muslims. Unfortunately, based on allah sanctified Islamic aggression, it may come to this again. I would rather that than live as a dhimmi. Do you not think that they actually mean, “we value death more than you value life?”
Vitruvius,
“I think all children should be well versed in comparative religion. Then, when they are adults, they can demarcate their own beliefs based on knowledge, not superstition. I don’t subscribe to the diety concept. I do subscribe to many of the common humane traditions of many theologies, in particular Judeo-Christianity. As I’ve said before, I’m a-deist, not a-theist.”
I completely agree with straight forward teaching of comparitive religion. But only if the studies are based on textual truth, rather than dualism, obfuscation and ficticious inculcation. For example, Islam does not mean peace.
From USC:
The root word of Islam is “al-silm” which means “submission” or “surrender.” It is understood to mean “submission to Allah.” In spite of whatever noble intention has caused many a Muslim to claim that Islam is derived primarily from peace, this is not true. Allah says in the Qur’an (translated):
[2:136] Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed to us and that which was revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we have surrendered. [Arabic “Muslimoon”]
As well, in Arabic ‘Allah’ does not mean God. Ilah means God. Allah is the name of the Islamic god. One of a pantheon of 365 traditional Arabic gods. Allah and Yahweh are not the same. Islam is not an Abrahamic faith.
Washington, Franklin, Jefferson were Diests. And from what has been witnessed, very moral characters (other than what was dug up and dated in the basement of Ben’s former London ‘Hellfire Club’ abode, recently).
I, however, am of a gracefully experienced Christian point-of-view.
ET
The wiki notes on Patricia Crone are flagged with a neutrality suspected sign, further more she is a lone heretic among early Islamic historians for proposing the Byzantine incursion farce based on her interpretations alone. Why would you pick her as a source when she so clearly is out on a thin limb all by herself? Why not read the actual original sources instead of a rebel scholar with no backing? If she is your source for Islamic information I urge you to dig a little deeper almost anywhere else. Forgive my harping, I thought you were just being obtuse for your own reasons when the actual cause is poor background information. Did she attract you because she was a rebel female scholar?
lookout:
I may have mentioned this before. Went bolt upright reading F.A. Hayek’s observation that religious belief goes well with free market economics for this reason: the market economy is far too complex for any man or committe of men to fully understand and therefore the vanity of central planning is eschewed. In other words the market works in “mysterious ways” as believers are wont to say of their God.
It was — dare I say it — an epiphany!
I have a feeling that the societal decay and corruption you cite may have be related to this observaton is some vague way.
ET,
As stated before, that makes two of you. You might acquiesce to the predominate point of view, based as it is on fact.
“The first sign of genius is contradiction.” – Oscar Wilde
To be clear, Irwin, while I may be a-deist, I’m not anti-deist. So Frankin et al aren’t a problem for me. Moreover, I know that I may be wrong (as MND mentions: too complex for any one…). That’s why I try to not use my a-deism as an excuse for bad behaviour (to the best of my ability to figure out just what bad behaviour is). All the classic theology texts have internally conflicting advice on the details of good behaviour; it remains up to individual humans to make up their own minds on how to reconcile those descrepancies.
(PS: Here’s Abraham Lincoln on matters of genius &c: “If we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall in to this vice. The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and generosity.” 😉
Yes, re “religious belief goes well with free market economics for this reason: the market economy is far too complex for any man or committee of men to fully understand”, MND, I think so. Epiphany: what we all need, over and over! (Thanks for that excellent quote and insight.)
Of course, Christians are mere mortals and full of piss, vinegar, and all kinds of other less than edifying things.
But, at base, authentic Christianity obliges us to bow before the One who created us, through love and by sheer grace. (In the light of human suffering and a whole lot of other anomalies, THAT is surely a mystery.)
As you imply, central planning is altogether blasphemy: arrogance and reductionism of the most crass kind.
Ah, so you can see where my problem is, Lookout. I believe that existence always was and always will be, ergo, there is no creation-event in my model. Nevertheless, I don’t see how that metaphysical belief affects my moral model. After studing the options and my context, I find myself in favour of a moral model that is similar to yours and most of the other SDA regulars. That’s one of the reasons we gather here, and put up with and even enjoy the squabbles between the libertarians and the puritans 😉
Bless you, Vitruvius! (I really enjoy and respect your posts.) Yes, we share far more than we don’t.
You say, “I don’t see how that metaphysical belief affects my moral model. After studying the options and my context, I find myself in favour of a moral model that is similar to yours and most of the other SDA regulars”. And, with sincere, due respect, where do you think that comes from? (It didn’t rise, fully formed, from the head of some mythical goddess.) You say that you grew up and were educated as a Catholic.
Vitruvius, have you been in any public school classrooms lately? They’re all under the anti-Christian dispensation. They’re not very nice places to be. Among a multitude of other indignities and utter abuse, teachers can be, and are, lied about by the lowest common denominator and then can be, and are, banished, no due process. Really.
The kind of morals you seem to think are intrinsic, most definitely are not. Selfishness is easy and ingrained—I know, and try to resist it. Altruism is difficult: it needs to be taught, modelled (saints of all kinds are good for this), and reinforced. Secularism is a very poor teacher in this regard.
I head out tomorrow to a class with vipers. I’ll have to watch my back. Part of my strategy is to be very up front: don’t give them space to strike.
Kyrie eleison. Who ever thought it would come to this? Hmmm . . . Christians like G.K. Chesterton, T.S. Eliot, and C. S. Lewis. Where and who are such prophets today? (For one, Pope Benedict, I think.)
I think, Lookout, that the moral model I (we?) refer to comes from tens of thousands of years of human beings experimenting with various systems and methodologies of interaction, of which I think that, at least since the reformation and enlightenment, the Judeo-Christian model reflects the best-available practices based on a broad assesment of actual results (with due deference to various useful results from other theological formulations).
If you’ll allow me to pick a semanitc nit, I don’t think selfishess is a problem, indeed I think selfishness is the definition of life (but that’s a separate essay). The problem, I think, is greed. Note that selfishness is not included in the list of seven deadly sins; greed is.
Thus we have the following results. At SDA, the prevailing moral opinion is (1) what’s mine is mine, and (2) I should be generous with what’s mine. That’s selfish but good. On the other hand, our opposition holds that (1) what’s yours is the collective’s, and (2) the collective should decide what to do with what’s yours. That’s greedy and bad.
Pope John Paul II said, “The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism.”
Now consider the following parallelism: The fundamental error of Islamism is anthropological in nature. Islamism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the theological organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the theological mechanism.”
Vitruvius,
Agreed. Curiosity – or the individual’s responsibility to search for an answer – unless, of course, they’ve not realized the question.
And a very good quote from Lincoln. Although, Churchill might’ve objected.
A thought: What inspired Mohammad is absolute genius.
To make immorality moral by holy writ, based on god’s commands (a god only witnessed by one illiterate individual); who arbitrarily and singularly enjoined his belief to the dominate Judeo/Christian belief – In fact, making himself and his construct an evolution of the former and the “seal,” is preposterous.
The moral of the story is quite a mystery, in and of itself.
Today we suffer from what some have called the “desacredization” of life.
Science is wonderful. It is good. It is enormously beneficial. It has also reshaped some of the fundamental ways in which life and life’s value is perceived.
In Huston Smith’s interesting book, Why Religion Matters, he traces a few concrete themes that are developments out of traditional, modern, and postmodern perceptions and descriptions of science:
1. In the traditional, religious view spirit is fundamental and matter derivative… Matter obtrudes in the sea of spirit only occasionally, like icebergs. The scientific world view turns this picture on its head. …
2. In the religious world view [traditional and religious being used interchangeably] human beings are the less who are derived from the more.
Trailing clouds of glory, they carry within themselves traces of their noble origins. They are creatures of their creator, or (stated philosophically) emanations from the One that contains every perfection. … Science reverses this etiology, positioning humanity as the more that has derived from the less. From a universe that was devoid of sentience at its start, life eventually emerged, and from its simplest form has advanced to the elevated stature that we human beings now enjoy. Nothing in science’s universe is more intelligent than we are.
3. The traditional world view points toward a happy ending; the scientific world view does not.
Later on he mentions a couple of other specific points.
After making a big distinction between science and scientism, he says, “Scientism adds to science two corollaries, first that the scientific method is if not the only reliable method of getting a truth, then at least the most reliable method; and second, that the things that science deals with — material entities — are the most fundamental things that exist. These two corollaries are seldom voiced, for once they are brought to attention it is not difficult to see that they are arbitrary. Unsupported by facts, they are at best philosophical assumptions, and at worst merely opinions.”
Our world view has been completely reoriented simply because science has been enormously successful at what it does. If Kirk and Spock beamed down to a planet and cured disease with penicillin that the witch doctors couldn’t help with, the people would instantly want to worship Kirk and Spock’s god.
Naturally they should have said thank you very much — you have wonderful modalities for curing disease, but theologically our views have been constructed over millennia, and your effectiveness does not influence that.
The ‘desacredization’ of life.
One way that the traditionalists address this problem is as follows.
Human beings have the capapcity to fathom cosmic principles that exist in the universe.
Some human beings have the capacity to fathom higher and deeper levels of these principles than others. Therefore this is considered to be a hierarchical arrangement.
Those seers that cognize cosmic principles then attempt to explain this to society. And society then attempts to base culture on this high apprehension of cosmic principles.
So what happens when society gets to a place where it not only dismisses the seers, but it also doesn’t even believe that cosmic principles exist?
You wind up in the world we live in today. A materialistic universe in which scientism and other forces have deconstructed the whole basis for the Traditionalist view of the universe. Relativistic epistemology then is the only relevant point of view that anyone can see. There is no cosmic principle. There is no heaven, there is no Nirvana, there is no Jesus, and whatever values you personally hold are separated from the realm of important fact which can only be validated from the point of view of the scientifc method.
‘Not a lot I disagree with here, Vitruvius.
You say, “. . . the moral model I (we?) refer to comes from tens of thousands of years of human beings experimenting with various systems and methodologies of interaction, of which I think that, at least since the reformation and enlightenment, the Judeo-Christian model reflects the best-available practices based on a broad assessment of actual results”.
It’s just that our society no longer believes this and the results are not encouraging.
(MND admits his conundrum here. Don’t you think that the secularization of our society is having a seriously deleterious effect? With due respect, I believe what you’re saying has traces of the dreadful theology of a childhood hymn we used to sing: “You in your small corner and I in mine.”)
I appreciate the parallel you draw between socialism and Islamism. But I fear that the West, with no strong moral base, is a sitting duck for all kinds of dhimmitude.
BTW, we’re already being dhimmied by our own PC overlords. We’re ripe for the picking.
Kyrie eleison.