http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4107524.stm
read it and weep. :)
UPDATE: I'm moving this post back to the top because it kind of got lost in the flurry of other bullshit over the past 36 hours or so. in case anyone else wanted to chime in, or watch the mutual frustration ensue. ;P
30 comments:
Not yay religion - more like yay insane priests.
sure, blame the symptoms, ignore the sickness. that's the right route!
there is a reason that there was a GROUP of people that did this. because they all shared this common belief etc.
without their ridiculous belief in religion and demons and whatnot, this wouldn't have happened.
there is a reason to try to correct ignorant superstition, and not only does my Richard Dawkins post touch on it, but this post, and a few others I've posted also touch on it.
please don't put words into my mouth. my wish isn't just to "abolish religion", my wish is to teach people how to think... engendering an enlightened rational environment where religion in the sense of christianity, judaism, islam etc... becomes obsolete. "abolish" infers a forceful repression... and abolishing the symptom of an ignorant and superstitious irrational way of thinking, is not going to help the people to think any more clearly.
your myopic view of the problem is very clear in this post.
I personally like pretty much every christian I've ever met. generally they are very nice, caring, compassionate people. they do their best to do gods will, be good people etc.
the problems caused by their type of beliefs are much deeper and more complex. I have devoted MANY pages of posts, going into great detail and at great length trying to explain these issues and my views on them. perhaps you'd do me the favor of actually reading them before you assume to know my logic or views.
thanks.
it's like saying "don't blame the crack for the way the crack addict is acting. it's just a bad crack addict here and there that gives crack a bad name."
the crack is what fucks up their ability to think clearly etc. this is the same kind of thing that religion does. it is diametrically opposed to rational, critical thinking skills... objectivity, etc. because you have to suspend those parts of your brain in order to maintain belief, lest you suffer from cognitive dissonance. so you essentially train your brain to shut off whenever something comes up which would, in normal life, cause you to cry "BULLSHIT" so to speak.
I've literally sat down with my mother and had a 5 hour talk with her... at the beginning of the talk, outside of the context of religion, having her explain her views on things, explaining things to her, having her give me her opinions and agreeing on certain facts etc. then I went on to tell her that later on I would say certain things to her, and that before she would even think about it, she would respond with precisely certain statements... pre-programmed knee-jerk responses meant to head off the risk of cognitive dissonance... cut off the possibility of considering a point that might be contrary to her religious beliefs.
and every time she said exactly what I said she would, when I said what I told her I'd say... contrary to things that were already covered and agreed to as facts earlier in the conversation.
it's really not that difficult to understand the thought process once you actually consider it, take a look at it and actually attempt to understand it... rather than falling into the same mental trap that my mother did in an attempt to maintain your belief system.
food for thought.
Interesting.
First off, to assume that you were talking about abolishing religion isn't such a huge stretch of the imagination.
Let's think about what you said. "blame the symptoms, ignore the disease". Comparing religion to a disease implies that you would want to abolish (or destroy) it, like you would a disease. You didn't say that ignorence was to blame for the murder, you said religion. This also implies that it was the only problem. What do you do with a problem? You try your best to illiminate it. So I don't think I was really that far off in what I took from your statement.
Actually, if you want to talk about being myopic - doesn't the whole post fit that description? The title "yay religion" implies that it is only because of religion that such a tragedy took place. A quick way out - blame religion, ignore the other factors.
You stated otherwise in your second to last comment, but if you're going to call me myopic, you probably shouldn't be posting an entry that is just as short sighted as I am apparently being. It's the same thing, isn't it? Trivializing the problem?
I disagree with what you said about religion. I don't shut out rational in my thinking, I don't ignore evidence against religion. I assure you, my mind is not clouded when it comes to thinking logically or scientifically. I think/have thought very long and hard about it. Exestentialism - what every intelligent person should continue to go through throughout their entire life. It is perfectly possible to think about things clearly, and arrive back at the same conclusion. I think I've talked about this before.
But I'm certainly not about to pour my heart out here. The fact remains that not everything can be explained by science alone.
eliminate, sorry, had to correct that one for you.
I see how you could have seen it that way.
I think that religion, and the type of superstition, ignorance and obviously severe detachment from reality caused by it (in the extreme in this case), caused this. I cut to the root of the problem. ignorance, sure... but caused by what? this wasn't just a general lack of knowledge, it was an entirely flawed mindset centered VERY soundly on... *drumroll here* RELIGION that caused this.
and no, not everything can be explained by science, not as we now know it, but you need to start facing the facts when science starts rather firmly disproving the foundations of your religious belief. science is taking mankind forward, religion is holding us back. take a good look at history and try to argue that statement with me. I'm sure you can make an effort, we've chatted enough in the past to assure me of that. ;)
and for the record, I'm going to link to Existentialism here, as it's a very interesting topic that I hope readers will have a look at. I'm not sure quite how it fits into your sentence, as the basic tenets of it are more apt to fit a rather neutral blend between christianity, satanism and other religions from what I know of it. freedom to act... and understanding and taking the consequences for your own actions... that's more in the camp of satanism, not christianity... so it's odd to see you bring it up in a post somewhat in the defense of religious belief, considering that you seem to be more in the christian camp than in the satanist one.
although we touched on that before, and you insisted that free will was christian.
but I digress. :-/
I'm going to track down my copy of the satanic bible and post a few excerpts from it's preface. maybe they'll clear up my view on that. who knows, maybe I'll learn something in the process. :)
It's two in the morning, I'm tired.
The way I understand existentialism, it is the belief that nothing has meaning unless a person gives it some. An existential period is one where people question their own beliefs, why the believe them, and whether or not they have simply applied meaning to something that really doesn't have any. That's the way I understand it, anyways. I didn't really use it to defend my beliefs, rather to add to my statement that I have indeed thought about things.
"science is taking mankind forward, religion is holding us back".
From what, exactly? From growing as individuals? That I would disagree with, as I believe faith to be the questioning and requestioning of ones innermost beliefs.
From growing as a society? It seems to me that science is going full force. So much as been discovered in the past ten years alone - and, as technology changes, ideologies evolve as well. Society seems to be adapting to scientific advance and discovery quite well, if you ask me.
From becoming logical, free thinking, intelligent people? You might have something there. If you assume that religion is incorrect, which, as we both well know, is quite difficult to prove.
Maybe your statement would be more accurate if it was "religion has held us back". It has, it absolutely has. Or maybe it's not religion...maybe it's the close minded people with only one view of Christianity. Obviously, this "holding back" couldn't have happened without religion - but I think that the people, and societal values have a big impact on that.
If you think about it, religion also pushed society forward. In Biblical times, it was a huge revelation to hear the Christian message that God accepted all people for who they were, rich or poor. As this became more popular, society began to evolve. Different ideologies began floating around.
If you're talking about evolution, I don't ignore it. I think it is perfcetly possible that it could have happened. I am not a pure creationist. I think it is likely that it did occur...but I don't think it could have started without the help of God. Ever read a book called "Finding Darwin's God"? I found it rather interesting.
I just don't understand how the universe could have evolved out of matter that hadn't been created. How do you get something from nothing? And the nebular hypothesis doesn't account for the planet that is spinning backwards.
Anywho, I'm off to bed. Enjoy your night, sleep well.
wrong. faith is belief without questioning.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=faith
have a look. do you see anything about the continual questioning and requestioning of your beliefs in there? quite the contrary actually.
you're obviously rather blind to all that religion does to prevent the progress of science. has pretty much throughout all of recorded history. especially in the Dark Ages and such. all of which I believe I have posted about before, with links to reference material etc.
just as christianity was used to justify the genocide of entire peoples, slavery, sexual discrimination... sure. it brought about different ways of thinking. so did many other beliefs and religions. and many beliefs outside of religion altogether. you are going WAY out in left field inferring that Christianity is somehow mainly to thank for the evolution of society. obviously SOME of the original ideas were influential to people of the area at the time. but you're ignoring the flip side of the coin to a fault. society had evolved thousands of years before christianity, and continued on much as it had before for centuries afterward. when real strides were finally made against sexual discrimination and slavery etc... it was only within the last 200 years. and we're still suffering the effects today.
something to keep in mind, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT, DOESN'T MEAN GOD DID IT. this argument has been used for centuries, and almost every other case has been disproven by the advance of science... this is one of the main reasons relgion has fought the advance of science throughout history. it is a threat to it's belief system which is built on FAITH, not FACT.
...
I've covered so much of this before in my posts. christianity is NOT the basis for morality... christianity is NOT the basis for human compassion... christianity is NOT the only explanation that people have come up with for the unexplained, to make themselves feel better. there were other religions long before, and since then that people believe just as firmly... or that have just as much proof as christianity (or lack thereof).
you should try reading Richard Dawkins for a bit. I read literature both pro and con to my beliefs to try to understand both sides, and correct my views, or flesh out my understanding where possible. you should try reading Dawkins and see what you think.
(and no, I haven't read "Finding Darwins God" to answer your question)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
read those.. also, I've studied Thomas Aquinas... who was actually not in good favor with the church due to his studies to try to "prove the existance of god". as the church believed that faith was requisite, and that needing or having proof would therefor make faith unnecessary, which would in essence obsolete or disprove religion. a bit of circular reasoning there... I have somewhere a link to a debate on the subject on slashdot.. I may have even posted about that very debate previously.
ah yes, here it is.
anyway... maybe you should read that stuff. even Aquinas said that while everything pointed to the existance of a god in his mind, it certainly did NOT point to that god being a fatherly man in white robes. that being could have been a unicorn, a giant rock... anything really. it also fails to take into account where the first cause came from... a previous first cause created god? the existance of god was no more plausible or final answer than not having an answer. etc.
please go do some reading and some more thinking... and consider the flip side of the coin. your responses bely an ignorance of the subject matter at hand and a bias towards your own beliefs as a result. (you can easily turn that statement around, and say that you have an ignorance of the subject matter as a result of your confirmation bias as well.)
sorry if that end sounds insulting, it's not meant to be.
oh, and good night to you as well. :) it's 7:06am here... and I'm exhausted myself... but I've been trying to wrap up these posts before I go to bed. otherwise I have a very hard time falling asleep... insomniac. :-/ I'd just lay there thinking of all this stuff... if I just get it out of my head for the most part, then I can fall asleep easier.
sweet dreams. :)
"wrong. faith is belief without questioning.
The link you put up said that it was "The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will". It says you trust, it says you believe, but it does not say that you do not question.
Faith is believing in something even if you don't have all the proof that it is there.
I don't think that religion is as black and white as you make it out to be.
It does not say in the Bible not to question. It says to have faith and believe. Many of the people in the Bible questioned God.
"you're obviously rather blind to all that religion does to prevent the progress of science"
Let's go back up to what was said, shall we?
You said "science is taking mankind forward, religion is holding us back".
I said "It has, it absolutely has".
It's called acknowelgement. Quite the opposite of being blind, I would think.
I am no stranger to what has gone on in the past in terms of religion.
But then you go on to talk about the Dark Ages and such. But what you have said just goes on to prove my point, that religion has held us back, but is not any longer. That was my whole point.
You talk about it holding us back in the present, but only give examples of the past.
You need to go back up and re-read what I wrote.
"something to keep in mind, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT, DOESN'T MEAN GOD DID IT"
No, it doesn't. But it opens up the possibility that he could have.
Don't athiests and religious people use basically the same close minded argument? When someone asks a question about God that they can't answer, they say "you can't even begin to understand the mind of God". But when science can't explain something, they simply brush it off and say that "science hasn't been able to explain it yet". It's the same thing, but opposite ends of the spectrum.
"christianity is NOT the basis for morality... christianity is NOT the basis for human compassion..."
I never said it was.
And for the record, I am not blind. You don't post evidence that goes against what you are trying to prove - why would I? Just because I don't say it, doesn't mean I havne't thought about it.
But I'm not quite sure how I am demonstrating such ignorenece. Enlighten me (in a polite way), please.
so you missed the whole point of doubting Thomas obviously.
*sigh*
THAT'S STILL GOING ON TODAY. stem cell research, cloning... these things get too close to allowing the manipulation of life. which is too close to "gods" area. while I realize that there are valid reasons to be cautious in these areas... the religious stonewalling is frustrating and is just more of the same. quit acting like religion just stopped having a problem with science lately. or how about ID and Creationist agendas lately? how hard they're pushing to either debunk evolution, or to force Creationist teaching into schools with EQUAL veracity etc? HELLO... your religious belief is SURE AS SHIT NOT SCIENTIFIC FACT. and actually flies in the fucking face of it. just because you pay taxes doesn't give you any more right to spout your bullshit nonsense in schools as it does the KKK or Raelians or anyone else. we teach FACTS in school for a fucking REASON.
*breathe*
there is more proof against Christianity's biblical version of the formation of the universe and life as we know it, and the death and ressurection of the Christ etc... than there is for it. BY FAR.
when I say you can't disprove god, I mean that you can't disprove god. it doesn't mean that most of christianity is not pretty obviously a crock of BULLSHIT... it means that you can't prove or disprove god. and the more we focus on reality and scientific progress etc.. the more we CONTINUE to disprove religious and superstitious bullshit.. the paranormal, etc.
THAT IS MY POINT.
you infer my dear. you infer.
your comment inferred that christianity was the foundation of the ideals of freedom and equality and compassion etc etc. it was not.
these things are arbitrary ideas invented by man based on emotions and feelings inherent in us as part of our evolution and survival.
I'm going to post a link to a .pdf file about the nature of emotions and their evolutionary functions etc. maybe it will help you understand where that point is coming from.
I made it clear that christianity has done some good things... pretty much ALL religions have. the point is, these things were done before those religions, outside those religions and will be done after those religions if they ever fade.
ok, this is getting frustrating and I got dragged into a fast paced chat with Lisa, her husband, Venessa and someone else that just left... Steve somebody. completely lost my train of thought on this comment. I'll get back to you.
(I need to cool off obviously anyway) :-/
bbl.
Phreadom, your fatal flaw seems to be your belief that no one understands your points because they aren't smart enough to grasp what you're saying. Have you ever thought that maybe you're just not smart enough to clearly explain your position?
yes. I have. :)
however, what I've been referring to lately is that I've already covered a lot of the topics before that are being brought up now, so I'm forced to repeat myself. and trying to cover in a short comment something that took me 7 pages to cover even remotely sufficiently... it's frustrating.
I'm not exactly eloquent.
oh, and that's not exactly a fatal flaw for the record. it's simply a frustrating hidrance that I am already aware of... and which is one of the main reasons I constantly point people to read what I've read to get the information from a better source and put it together for themselves.
if you weren't just trying to troll me here and had actually read my posts and thought about it, you'd probably have figured that out yourself.
(I'm not a fan of anonymous posters, so I'm inherently hostile towards them, aside from the fact that your comment was flamebait)
"it is diametrically opposed to rational, critical thinking skills... objectivity, etc. because you have to suspend those parts of your brain in order to maintain belief"
How so? you make a claim that belief in a religion is automatically opposed to rational thought and critical thinking? Why? you link a post to a wikipedia entry for cognitive dissonance, yet you fail to link a post to critical thinking perhaps this is because you lack the ability to comprehend it, still i would have thought you at least capable of googling it.
In essence "critical thinking" is the ability to analyze and evalutae data on a particular subject and draw a conclusion from said analyses. How is religious belief diametrically opposed to this? You yourself link to Aquenas's five proofs, would you not call this critical thinking? In fact you are no different from those religious "nuts" who believe in some "fact" despite all evidence and will overlook any amount of evidence and deny all opposing views and argumnets. You are the same, you will instanly reject any argument based upoun a religious fondation, you do not take in the information inherent in the argument and that perform an unbiased analyses of that information along with all other relevent date. No you simply disregard it out of hand.
Another problem with this entire debate is that you fall into the usual trap of showing your cards you very early in the debate with that intellgent young lady, over whether religion should be abolished, you replace "religion" impying all religions or religious belief in general, with christian beliefs in particular. You use evidence of past religions to support your arguments, clearly you are not opposed to religious belief in general but are in fact antagonistic to christianity in particular.
You seem to have a problem conceding points made against you, another sign of a weak debater, all debaters lose points, no one is perfect and the sign of a good mature debator is to conciede the hit. When lisa first began postin on this topic she was posting questioning your belief that religion should be abolished, and you state that isn't your argument you just want to foster an enlighted enviroment where all these deferent believes won't exist...hmm if something stops existing isnt it by definition abolished?? Very immature
And the clearest sign of your inadequacy as a debator is your use of the worst of the fallacious arguments, correcting the spelling of an opponent? Could there be a more banial use of the ad hominem argument? how trite.
And finally you prove your hypocracy when you attribute Aquenas's trouble with the church over his five proofs to his questioning the belief in god, to a conflict with christianity as awhole and not with simply the public thwarting of the church, if you think the papacy has always been what it is today merely the head of a major religous sect you really need to read up on european history. Its not different then Luthers thesis he wasn't questioning the teaching of chritinaity he was questioning the practices of the catholic church. clearly your inability to seperate curch dogma and politcal manuevering from pure religious belief, is one of the inherent flaws in your entire argument and all of its various incarnations since it seems to change when someone showcases your fallacies. Of course by changing your argument (and claiming that you are not infact changing it but its simply the readers misunderstanding of your original thought) you simply display even more logical and arugmenative fallacies.
god damnit. I had typed out a response to this and lost it (clicked the comment link on my page to check something, and it reloaded this and lost what I'd typed). I'll try to sum it up.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
I've read it before and many other related articles. I fail to see how my lack of making it into a hyperlink in my comment equates to my inability to comprehend it. maybe YOU should read it? pay close attention to the words used. thanks.
as for Thomas Aquinas, allow me to sum this up. I didn't even infer that he questioned his belief in god. I said that he was trying to PROVE the EXISTANCE of god, which would have had the unintended effect of negating faith. and while this did jeopardize the role of the Catholic Church then, which maintained massive power as the sole route to salvation through supression of literacy and dissent through means such as torture and even death, I saw no evidence of this being his primary goal. I'd appreciate some links to information to the contary if I'm mistaken here.
on to my next point.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=abolish
a·bol·ish
tr.v. a·bol·ished, a·bol·ish·ing, a·bol·ish·es
1. To do away with; annul.
2. To destroy completely.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=obsolete
ob·so·lete
adj.
1. No longer in use: an obsolete word.
2. Outmoded in design, style, or construction: an obsolete locomotive.
3. Biology. Vestigial or imperfectly developed, especially in comparison with other individuals or related species; not clearly marked or seen; indistinct. Used of an organ or other part of an animal or plant.
tr.v. ob·so·let·ed, ob·so·let·ing, ob·so·letes
To cause to become obsolete.
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now certainly you can see the difference between those two, right? one infers actual forceful destruction, the other implies simply making something no longer useful. it's like the difference between shooting the horse and burning the carriage, rather than simply teaching a person how to drive a car.
I really hoped that such an illustration would not have been necessary.
as for my dislike of Christianity, yes, I've openly stated that it is my least favorite religion. but I honestly dislike them all, and simply reference others to make points. having actually studied the effects and uses of religions in social groups in cultural anthropology and other places, as well as the beliefs of different religions etc, that knowledge comes in handy sometimes to help make a point about Christianity. Christianity simply happens to be the predominant religions here in the US, and therefor the biggest pain in my ass personally.
also, some religions, such as Buddhism, some flavors of which have beliefs similar to that of existentialism, atheism etc... don't really bother me that much. others, such as Sikhism and Hinduism, I haven't studied as much due to a lack of effect on my life... so I've focused mainly on the Abrahamic Religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. most others rate little more as petty cults etc, and as such don't generally play into my discussions.
as for my correction of Lisa's spelling, I'd like you to point out how many other times I've actually done that... especially in PC's case, who spells worse than a 5 year old. generally if I correct someones spelling, such as I did with Lisa, it's because they are intelligent individuals who generally do not make spelling mistakes. it was a friendly gesture and slightly as a poke of fun. as much as I might seem hostile in these discussions, when someone such as Lisa actually makes an effort to maintain a level head and convey her beliefs to me and try to defend those beliefs, rather than simply attacking me more directly as you've done, I actually enjoy the effort and respect it.
as for your last paragraph there... not only is it very difficult to decipher... (I won't pick on your spelling or puncuation or whatnot...) but actually contains some things which seem contrary to what I actually said. I've already covered my response above, but you should note to watch what you type and how you type it. I had to break that paragraph up and make a number of corrections in notepad just to figure out what the heck you were trying to say.
also, I don't see the parallels with Luthers direct disputes with the church. perhaps I haven't studied Aquinas' work enough, but from what I know of them both, they were for vastly different reasons. and Luther was well over 200 years later.
please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'll look more deeply into it in the meantime. however, I only see your attack as being partially incorrect, off base, and diversionary. as I only brought the matter of Aquinas up at all to demonstrate the flaw in the idea of "first cause", which wasn't even Aquinas idea in the first place! it was Aristotles.
I guess it boils down to something like this... the only real proof of god he really had was that there needed to be a start, and god solved that problem. this is the assumption that there needed to BE a start. he creates a problem and uses god as the solution. deus ex machina.
I was simply making a general reference to illustrate an idea. I left the details of digging deeper as an exercise to the reader as I didn't seem them as directly relevant to the point at hand.
----
now, if I've been off base here, I apologize. but as far as I know, I wasn't... and your post comes across as much more of an attack directly on me, a lack of understanding or even a knowledge of any of my previous posts, and diversionary even from the points that Lisa and I were discussing.
if you'd like to actually have a constructive part in this discussion, I'd ask that you actually stick to your facts and points and refrain from trying to attack me personally. if you disagree with something I've said, try to explain why and show me where I'm mistaken. I'd appreciate it. for starters, even though I feel it wasn't relevant to Lisa and I's discussion, I'm curious about your claims of Aquinas' motivations being the same as Luther's, and being as essentially an attack on the Catholic Church's political power structure rather than as a matter of theistic and philosophical investigation and scholarly writing etc. this is contrary to my knowledge of both people.
thanks for your effort.
He called me an intelligent young lady. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Two main things to say.
I never considered stem cell research to be about religion - I thought it was more along the lines of abortion; a moral issue rather than a religious one. The issue is about fertalizing embryoes, and then taking them apart for research purposes. There are many people who are non religious who do not support it.
As for what I inferred, I guess I was surprised because I never was thinking that in the least. Normally if I imply something I at least have some idea that I'm doing it. Not this time, apparently. Actualy, could you find what it is that I said that implied it? I'm curious.
just because you pay taxes doesn't give you any more right to spout your bullshit nonsense in schools as it does the KKK or Raelians or anyone else
Do not, I repeat, do NOT group me in with those people. It's not right, it's not fair. Until you know what my opinions are on various subjects, you have no right to do that. Unless you were stating "you" in a general sense, which in that case you should clarify that.
I guess I feel like there's a whole lot out there that you haven't seen and can't understand. It's like you're missing the inside of the pie, but are announcing what flavour it is by looking at the crust. But I'm not going to go on about that. It's a little more personal.
And this, Phreadom, is the point that I cut out of the debate. I wasn't getting angry in the least. In fact, I was thinking to myself how impressed I was that we weren't arguing. When you lose your temper, I seem to gradually be insulted more and more. No thanks.
Lisa: look into where the stem cells in question came from and more of the reasons behind why the opponents acted the way they did, and who was involved. you'll see what I'm talking about. (it wasn't a moral issue... the stock was already available, and not a questionable issue. the whole issue of morality etc was based on misinformation and religious pressure etc. that's just off the top of my head, as I can't find the sources at the moment. but if you'd like me to, I'll try to hunt them down for you.)
and sorry, yes, I meant that rhetorically. :( sorry.
I don't think I'm missing something about your Christian beliefs or whatnot... I was one. I think you fail to understand that I've been there and moved on and experienced wholly different religions and schools of thought etc in the following decade plus.
that's not to say that I don't still have things to learn, but I think it's wrong to say that just because I don't agree with your ideas doesn't mean I don't understand them. there is such a thing as knowing something, learning more and changing your initial ideas based on the additional information etc.
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again Lisa, I apologize for losing my temper. my discussion came in the middle of my heated fight over on PC's blog, so my blood pressure was up. I'm sorry. (hopefully you can understand the circumstances)
thank you for pointing out where I was losing my temper. I'd appreciate the continued discussion if you'd oblige me.
thanks. :(
Here's the deal: I don't feel comfortable replying to that on a public form. Give me your email address and I'll email you a response.
I didn't mean at all that you don't understand what it is to be a Christian. I'll explain this if you give me your address.
I've taken over 30 theology courses in my lifetime, and I have to say that a lot of the stuff you are claiming as fact is totally off base. Throwing up a link to Wikipedia does not make you an expert. I would gladly get in an intellectual debate with you on a number of these points, but your level of knowledge is so rudimentary that it would be a waste of my time. No hard feelings though, I'm sure you can relate.
I was not implying that Aquinas was actively challenging the Catholic Churchs practice, beliefs, or dogma as Luther was. But the reason the church had a beef with him over some of his writings was because of his at least for that time periods liberal ideas on social reform. In a time when all kings where said to decend from adam thus giving them the divine right to rule ( God gave all of the earth to Adam and his decendants therefor direct male decendents of Adam would be the true "owners" under the theory of premogeniture, which held sway for most of the history of the earth.) So if they where ordained by god to rule any sedition against them was not only an act of civil treason but was a mortal sin, and this is what the Catholic Church preached, no suprise there since they where much more of a politcal state-actor then a mere religious organization. But Aquinas instructed in his writings taht yes, sedition was a moratl sin BUT it was not a mortal sin to overthrow a king IF he had committed sedition against the people FIRST. This flew in the face of not only what the Kings wanted thier subjects to beleive but all political and religious thought at the time, under tradtional notions of divine right even if a King committed the greatest of atrocites no one BUT GOD could punish him. Its for his writings such as this and the proofs that the curch had a beef with him, but he didn't do it to directly attack the catholic church he did it because he wanted to and only attacked the curch indirectly. So what i was saying in response to your post was that you where stating that Aquinas proofing on the existence of god, questioned the existence of god, which under your theory of faith at the very least, removed or harmed the ironhardness of faith and that is why the church was upset, the fact is they where upset because he was indirectly questioning thier POWER by questioning a forbidden subject, in the same way as luther who WAS actually intentionally going against the church, but they wheren't upset with his beliefs per se, but his questioning of thier power. If you need refrences for any of thisi suggest, Aquinas writings, Bodin, Luthers crap i can't remeber exactly which one of his i'm thining of he's written so much. anyways there ya go the difference between being able to think critically AND have religious faith versus, simply upsetting a poilitcal actors power base.
there you go. a much better post. I agree with what you've said. :)
and actually, I don't recall the part about the Kings being descended from Adam, just the thing about the Popes being the descendants of (Saint) Peter.
just to clarify a little ambiguity in your comment, primogeniture has nothing to do with the succession from adam specifically, but is simply the matter of inheritence by the eldest child. what you're referring to would be a very specific subset of that, and NOT one that "held sway over the history of the earth", being as that it was by definition obviously confined to Christianity.
if you'd like to point me in the direction of some literature so that I can read up on it, I'd appreciate it. :)
thanks.
Premogenture is not a christinane concept, it was the dominate theory of land ownership since the inception of mankind, it is a male dominated real and personal property ownership and transfer belief. There are very few cultures in the history of the world that had a matriarchial society and even some of those had male dominate ownership schemes. In fact if you look at engish landownership from about 1100 to 1500-1600 you will see that promegentore was NOT the dominate scheme of landownership, there was no right to transfer land upoun death until the statute of wills, which is why they invented schemes such as the "use" the lord of the paricular land would determine who recieved the leasehold upon the death of the leaseholder. True only men could be leaseholder and in some but not all, not even a majority of fiefedoms used premogenture only the "traditionalist". It all has to do with the alienability of land and what the leaseholder could and couldn't do with it, and the type of incident owed to the lord by the leaseholder. If the land was a martial incident then the lord wouldn't give the leasehold to the eldest son if he was sickly, weak or incompetant. Because a martial incident ment that the landholder had to supply a man to serve underarms when the lord called. (there are several types of incidents i simply use that as a convient example) Now as far as the lords went they recieved thier property interest from the king (and before that from pure strength of arms of course) and once again the King got his right from god (because he was a directed decendant of Adam)Funny enough even though the theroy of divine right washed out somewhere around the 1400 to 1500 the motto of the royal family of england is still "Deus est Mon Droit" But just to clearify promegenture is NOT a christiane concept if you doubt me look at Aristole's politics or Neomachian Ethics. or Plato
Oh and some lit about the decendent of adam thing hmm best i would say would be Bodin "On Soveriengty" or Augustine's "City of God" which is pretty much teh authoritative source on this subjec the being considered the father of Catholic dogma but also GOD AWFULLY BORING TO READ. SO i would suggest Bodin who uses it to bost he's extremely hardcore beliefs in Absolute Monarchy, seriously he makes Hobbes look like a friggin Brutus. (i.e a republicain for those of you not up on Roman history) Also just noticed you where only saying that the Adam version of premagentore is christiane which is obvious since non-christianes tend not to beleive in Adam, or that god gave him all the land to hold in common for all the peoples etc.. but promagentore as a WHOLE has held sway over the history of the earth and this is simply them legitimizing thier "inheretance" by using the ancient concept.
Oh and just one more thing if you want to see this concept of Adam and absolute monarchy completely shredded i suggest John Locke, the second greatest political thinker ever to live.
it's spelled "primogeniture" for the record. it's starting to nag at me seeing you keep typing it that way, sorry. :( not trying to be a prick.
um... dude? why are you going off on a wild tangent, completely unrelated to what we were talking about? are you trying to prove something? I know what primogeniture is, I simply didn't see any point in spelling it out here when it had nothing to do with what we were talking about.
I also didn't say that primogeniture was a christian concept, I clarified that it was NOT one... I think I spelled that out rather clearly, correcting your inference to the contrary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieu_et_mon_droit
which also does not fit what you inferred that it meant for the record. either you, or your source seems to have misinterpreted it, either intentionally or simply out of a lack of understanding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture
again, absolutely no mention of your particular little flavor. ANYWHERE that I could find for that matter. I've simply never heard of it.
at this point I'm really starting to think that you're not half as smart as you're trying to come across as. you can't spell most things correctly, you constantly COMPLETELY misunderstand what I've said, and can't even clearly or correctly state what YOU're trying to say.
now, I appreciate the effort at conversation here, but a few points need to be made... first off, you've strayed WAY WAY WAY off the course of what Lisa and I were discussing in what is seeming a rather blatant attempt at proving your own knowledge, completely oblivious to what's actually going on. secondly, you don't seem to me making even a cursory attempt at validating what you're talking about, or providing any links to further information.
I've read a lot on royalty and religion etc... and frankly I've never heard of this lineage of adam as a justification for royal power... EVER. and I've even had another look today and asked around, and you know what? NOBODY has. so I'm not sure if you were just reading some quack hypotheses or what... but what I'd really appreciate, rather than pointing to some book that I don't have access to... is any reference anywhere online that I might see that would even make me put enough credence in your claim to want to track down one of those books you mentioned to look further into the matter.
like I said, I'm humoring you right now because the subject matter is interesting, but you are seriously way off the point of what we were talking about, and it's making your own personal motivations etc look a bit suspect.
try to stay on track and try to provide some kind of further reading for points you make, both at my request, and for the sake of my readers. thanks.
CRAP! I had a comment all written up and then i friggin lost it by clicking on a link. Hmm well i sum it up for sake of time. A. Wikipedia is NOT the source of all knowledge it is a public acces online encyclodia. Secondly Bodin, Locke, Hobbes, and Augstine are all available online with a simple google search. Next How did you study religion or royalty without reading any of these people? I mean ok Bodin is a bit obscure and more fro advanced study but still Locke and Augustine? the father of catholisim? or LOCKE! for i mean come on! its John Friggin Locke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Filmer but ::sigh:: here you go a link
Now as far as why i went off on a tangent on the history of legal sussecion to land? because i get caught up in a topic and YOU decided to "school" me on primogenture ,thus i had to respond and i "assumed" that you where capable and enjoyed a good rational debate, i obviously am wrong.
Furtheremore I CONCEDED THIS POINT! "Also just noticed you where only saying that the Adam version of premagentore is christiane which is obvious since non-christianes tend not to beleive in Adam, or that god gave him all the land to hold in common for all the peoples etc.. but promagentore as a WHOLE has held sway over the history of the earth and this is simply them legitimizing thier "inheretance" by using the ancient concept." Do you bother to read peoples comments or do you just use your higher then average shoe size, i mean iq and guess what it is they said?
YOu accuse me of not citing my work, fine i will not online cites i'll give you actual from the work cite from now on. But would you mind at least listing SOME of the HUGE amount of works you have studied on royalty anmd/or religion? Or does it come to you from divine inspiration?
yes, I have read some of St. Augustine's writings, but mostly on the nature of original sin. honestly I wasn't aware that was who you were talking about. I was thinking modern authors. :) my mistake.
I don't mind a general discussion that leads off into who knows where. it makes for interesting conversation. it just seemed poor timing, as I was trying to make a particular point to Lisa about the effect that religious thinking has on cognitive abilities, and this really pulled the conversation off into another direction completely and left that point unresolved. (not that it would have likely been resolved either way, but at least it would have remained on topic and been hammered out some more)
and yes, I read your point. you just repeated what I said essentially, which made me think that maybe you didn't read what I said... if that wasn't the case, I guess I didn't see the need to reiterate what I'd just said to clarify your point. sorry for the confusion.
honestly I generally don't maintain a running bibliography in my head. I take the ideas from what I've read and weigh them against others in a constant revision of what I know... refining, updating, expanding etc.
I pick things up wherever I find them, and start reading. I generally don't bother to try to memorize the title and the author, much less to try to match what I've just read to the author and title etc.
anywhere from magazine articles, to history channel specials, to bible study books, to online articles etc. not to mention that this information is cross referenced with my college courses in cultural anthropology, my other studies in religion, psychology etc. it's an expansive mesh of information which all ties in together.
sorry, that's just the way I work. I guess I'm just selfish. it's always been of primary importance to me for ME to understand things... and secondarily to try to get other people to share that understanding. and yes, it does get frustrating when someone wants to know where I read some particular bit of information, because I can't for the life of me remember usually.
also, in case you couldn't guess, my primary sources of information are generally secular ones. religious sources to me are by definition biased. :) I only start reading religious texts when it's theological information that I'm after. I don't read the bible to find out about nuclear fission.
and please, watch your attitude, or I won't bother continuing a civil discourse with you. I have a limit to my patience when people start insulting me, and it's only because you're actually making interesting conversation and pointing me in some new directions for new things to research, that I'm tolerating it.
I think we've established here that I wasn't aware of this whole lineage of Adam thing. I believe that alone invalidates a few of your earlier insults, as well as agreeing with other points you made etc. if you were trying to prove some point, it's proven. you can hold your own in a conversation with me. :) now watch your tongue please.
PS: a curious note... it sounds rather like Robert Filmer came up with the idea of lineage of Adam himself... and he lived over 300 years after Aquinas... how did his ideas affect a man dead for over 3 centuries before his birth? I'm not trying to be offensive, but as much as I'm impressed by the amount of information you seem to be able to remember, you seem to have trouble actually putting it together and doing anything useful with it. this isn't the first time I've run into such a person. the last was incredibly well read and much more articulate and intelligent, but still failed to be able to think for himself... we came out of a serious of long and rather heated debates with a mutual respect for one another in the end though. we agreed to disagree in the end. his shortcoming was that as much as he could quote authors, and state ideas verbatim from particular books while citing their titles and authors etc... he COULD NOT for the LIFE OF HIM answer a direction question as to what HE HIMSELF thought of any of a group of specific questions I asked him. he simply could not answer them. he could only recite what other people had said... and if he hadn't read what someone else had said about it, he couldn't give you any opinion because he couldn't put together information from a mass of disparate sources and piece together his own ideas and conclusions empirically.
now, admittedly, I have a horrible memory, and tend to ramble when I write and not explain myself well, but hopefully I'm not terribly far off base here. just attempting to clarify the situation.
markaville: I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I enjoy the conversation and food for thought, but it's not going to do either of us good if you get pissy with me. it just makes me get even pissier, and then there's no longer much of an intellectual discussion going on. that makes me unhappy. :) and probably doesn't make you terribly thrilled either.
it's in my nature to be condescending when someone insults my intelligence. (and possibly in your case as well, given the nature of our exchanges) ;)
let's try to keep the less mature portions of my character under wraps. ;)
if, as Lisa says, she's going to continue this discussion with me in e-mail, I see no reason why we can't continue our merry discourse here on whatever topics we end up leading into.
fine with me. fine with you? :)
The idea that Filmer created the idea of the decendants of adam idea by himself is a bit of a misunderstanding by some. He simlpy stated the idea in a more simlpistic way, its the way i like to use when i discuss it, the theory behind it is found well in the bible primarliy but more specifically in augustines writings along with various other authors and theologins etc. The theory behind it is that God gave the power to own the land in common for all man and to rule that land to Adam, he had sons who had sons who became kinds etc etc etc. Augustine calls it the Inherited Power of Adam to man and alludes to specific blood lines, Monarchs traced thier blood lines (supposdly) to Adam early on. Obviouslty once they became established they simply traced to the first king etc. Filmer simply writes about it in a more direct route and as much as i disagree with what he says ( I am a true Machaivellien, not in the sense that people think becauase most people don't understand machiavellie but i digress (see how easy it is)) That is why i also pointed you to Locke who tears apart Filmers theorys, of course by thne Filmers theorys where sort of dated in the realm of political thought, but that is why i also pointed to the Deus est mon droit, because while on the face of it the "theories" behind the right ot rule where changing dramatically there was still this little seed of teh divine right that persistst even today. Remember i said this was A thoery and not one i particualrly hold with, as i said i'm a Machiavellien which means i believe in a very romanesc style of Republic.
As far as answering questions ...go ahead and fire away, i'v answered questions before a bank of Judges and argued with the great Justice Bork himself (yeah i'm proud of that one)So feel free and try your best haha thats a challenge by the way.I too cull info from various sources all though i try to find other supporting sources if they look suspect such as online info in some cases and certain journals or authors.
So back to Cognitive Dissonance, The Jewish faith Calls for lively debate amongst its followers, religious debate specificaly, therefor not all religious thinking is inherently biased to rational thought. I am sure given time i could find more examples that is just one i know off the top of my head.
The multitude of Christine faiths is another example obviouslt people have debated about the faith many many times over the years, Luther, Calvin (and hobbes haha) the speration of the church of england etc etc etc. So to put a question to you, how exactly does religious belief IN GENERAL prevent critical thinking and cause cognitive dissonance?
ok, now that makes a lot more sense. thanks for the explanation. :)
yeah, one of my friends (who reads this blog actually), proc, is a very intelligent and very smart Jew... he's been teaching me a lot about it lately, and that's one of the points he was talking about.
Christianity and religious belief in general... in order to say for instance that a man could die for 3 days, return from the dead... or walk on water.... or fix blindness, cure leprosy, raise the dead... to set aside all that we know about science and medicine and believe such things, in light of the fact of background understanding of group psychology and cold readings and prestidigitation etc etc... how memory works, the history of the bible... the history of other religions and on and on and on...
if I told you that someone today was walking down the street miraculously raising the dead, walking on water, curing AIDS etc... you would cry BULLSHIT... but when you read it in a book from 2,000 years ago, you take it as the ABSOLUTE UNQUESTIONABLE TRUTH?
or that a man lives in the clouds and created the earth in 7 days, created man from mud in 1 day and created woman from his rib? or that the earth was originally populated by all the animals that just happened to be from the exact time when the bible was written... etc? or that other religions had their own stories that are interestingly enough written in the same manner, contemporarily?
there are so many things in religion that are superstitious, ignorant fairy tales that people created to explain the unknown etc.. or to embellish tales of great figures, as greek mythology did with it's heros etc. things like Zeus casting down lighting bolts from the clouds onto people who angered him. as humans advanced their knowledge and understanding of the world around us, we started to realize that these stories were just fairy tales made up to explain the unexplained to give us order and comfort.
you should know all this.
(and I was guessing at the etymology of your name as soon as I saw it... was I right then to assume that it's a play off of your own name and that of Machiavelli? also, I wonder if you stumbled across my blog purely by chance search because I mentioned Aquinas, who seems to fall inside your area of interest, or because someone sent you here? I have a lot of people who are pointed to my blog to either come be pissed off by what I write, or to come here and try to argue with me in the stead of those who lack the means. just curious.)
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