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Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start WWIII to Speed the "Second Coming" ... and Atheist Neocons are Using Religion
MILLIONS OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS WANT TO START WORLD WAR III ... TO SPEED UP THE SECOND COMING
The Founding Fathers weren't particularly anti-Islam.
But millions of Americans believe that Christ will not come again until Israel wipes out its competitors and there is widespread war in the Middle East. Some of these folks want to start a huge fire of war and death and destruction, so that Jesus comes quickly.
According to French President Chirac, Bush told him that the Iraq war was needed to bring on the apocalypse:
In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:
“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”…
There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.
And British Prime Minister Tony Blair long-time mentor, advisor and confidante said:
“Tony’s Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Iraq too – was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better.”
Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair’s mentor, says that his religion gave him a “total belief in what’s right and what’s wrong”, leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as “a moral cause”…
Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.
Bill Moyers reports that the organization Christians United for Israel - led by highly-influential Pastor John C. Hagee - is a universal call to all Christians to help factions in Israel fund the Jewish settlements, throw out all the Palestinians and lobby for a pre-emptive invasion of Iran. All to bring Russia into a war against us causing World War III followed by Armageddon, the Second Coming and The Rapture. See this and this.
This all revolves around what is called Dispensationalism. So popular is Dispensationalism that Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series has sold 65 million copies. Dispensationalists include the following mega-pastors and their churches:
They are supported by politicians such as:
- Texas Senator John Cronyn
- Former House Minority Whip Roy Blunt
- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
- And others
Dr. Timothy Webber - an evangelical Christian who has served as a teacher of church history and the history of American religion at Denver Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Vice-President at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, IL, and President of Memphis Theological Seminary in Tennessee - notes:
In a recent Time/CNN poll, more than one-third of Americans said that since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, they have been thinking more about how current events might be leading to the end of the world.
While only 36 percent of all Americans believe that the Bible is God's Word and should be taken literally, 59 percent say they believe that events predicted in the Book of Revelation will come to pass. Almost one out of four Americans believes that 9/11 was predicted in the Bible, and nearly one in five believes that he or she will live long enough to see the end of the world. Even more significant for this study, over one-third of those Americans who support Israel report that they do so because they believe the Bible teaches that the Jews must possess their own country in the Holy Land before Jesus can return.
Millions of Americans believe that the Bible predicts the future and that we are living in the last days. Their beliefs are rooted in dispensationalism, a particular way of understanding the Bible's prophetic passages, especially those in Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They make up about one-third of America's 40 or 50 million evangelical Christians and believe that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the unfolding of end-times events. In the last part of the 20th century, dispensationalist evangelicals become Israel's best friends-an alliance that has made a serious geopolitical difference.
***
Starting in the 1970s, dispensationalists broke into the popular culture with runaway best-sellers, and a well-networked political campaign to promote and protect the interests of Israel. Since the mid-1990s, tens of millions of people who have never seen a prophetic chart or listened to a sermon on the second coming have read one or more novels in the Left Behind series, which has become the most effective disseminator of dispensationalist ideas ever.
***
During the early 1980s the Israeli Ministry of Tourism recruited evangelical religious leaders for free "familiarization" tours. In time, hundreds of evangelical pastors got free trips to the Holy Land. The purpose of such promotional tours was to enable people of even limited influence to experience Israel for themselves and be shown how they might bring their own tour group to Israel. The Ministry of Tourism was interested in more than tourist dollars: here was a way of building a solid corps of non-Jewish supporters for Israel in the United States by bringing large numbers of evangelicals to hear and see Israel's story for themselves. The strategy caught on.
***
Shortly after the Six-Day War, elements within the Israeli government saw the potential power of the evangelical subculture and began to mobilize it as a base of support that could influence American foreign policy. The Israeli government sent Yona Malachy of its Department of Religious Affairs to the United States to study American fundamentalism and its potential as an ally of Israel. Malachy was warmly received by fundamentalists and was able to influence some of them to issue strong pro-Israeli manifestos. By the mid-1980s, there was a discernible shift in the Israeli political strategy. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Jewish state's major lobbying group in Washington, D.C., started re-aligning itself with the American political right-wing, including Christian conservatives. Israel's timing was perfect. It began working seriously with American dispensationalists at the precise moment that American fundamentalists and evangelicals were discovering their political voice.
***
Probably the largest pro-Israel organization of its kind is the National Unity Coalition for Israel, which was founded by a Jewish woman who learned how to get dispensationalist support. NUCI opposes "the establishment of a Palestinian state within the borders of Israel."
***
In their commitment to keep Israel strong and moving in directions prophesied by the Bible, dispensationalists are supporting some of the most dangerous elements in Israeli society. They do so because such political and religious elements seem to conform to dispensationalist beliefs about what is coming next for Israel. By lending their support-both financial and spiritual-to such groups, dispensationalists are helping the future they envision come to pass.
***
Dispensationalists believe that the Temple is coming too; and their convictions have led them to support the aims and actions of what most Israelis believe are the most dangerous right-wing elements in their society, people whose views make any compromise necessary for lasting peace impossible. Such sentiments do not matter to the believers in Bible prophecy, for whom the outcome of the quarrelsome issue of the Temple Mount has already been determined by God.
Since the end of the Six-Day War, then, dispensationalists have increasingly moved from observers to participant-observers. They have acted consistently with their convictions about the coming Last Days in ways that make their prophecies appear to be self-fulfilling.
***
As Paul Boyer has pointed out, dispensationalism has effectively conditioned millions of Americans to be somewhat passive about the future and provided them with lenses through which to understand world events. Thanks to the sometimes changing perspectives of their Bible teachers, dispensationalists are certain that trouble in the Middle East is inevitable, that nations will war against nations, and that the time is coming when millions of people will die as a result of nuclear war, the persecution of Antichrist, or as a result of divine judgment. Striving for peace in the Middle East is a hopeless pursuit with no chance of success.
***
For the dispensational community, the future is determined. The Bible's prophecies are being fulfilled with amazing accuracy and rapidity. They do not believe that the Road Map will-or should-succeed. According to the prophetic texts, partitioning is not in Israel's future, even if the creation of a Palestinian state is the best chance for peace in the region. Peace is nowhere prophesied for the Middle East, until Jesus comes and brings it himself. The worse thing that the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations can do is force Israel to give up land for a peace that will never materialize this side of the second coming. Anyone who pushes for peace in such a manner is ignoring or defying God's plan for the end of the age.
***
It seems clear that dispensationalism is on a roll, that its followers feel they are riding the wave of history into the shore of God's final plan. Why should they climb back into the stands when being on the field of play is so much more fun and apparently so beneficial to the game's outcome? As [one dispensationalist group's] advertisement read, "Don't just read about prophecy when you can be part of it."
ATHEIST WAR HAWKS MANIPULATE BELIEVERS TO BEAT THE DRUMS OF WAR
Leo Strauss is the father of the Neo-Conservative movement, including many leaders of the current administration.
Indeed, many of the main neocon players - including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Cambone, Elliot Abrams, and Adam Shulsky - were students of Strauss at the University of Chicago, where he taught for many years.
The people pushing for war against Iran are the same neocons who pushed for war against Iraq. See this and this. (They planned both wars at least 20 years ago.) For example, Shulsky was the director of the Office of Special Plans - the Pentagon unit responsible for selling false intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass. He is now a member of the equivalent organization targeting Iran: the Iranian Directorate.
Strauss, born in Germany, was an admirer of Nazi philosophers and of Machiavelli. Strauss believed that a stable political order required an external threat and that if an external threat did not exist, one should be manufactured. Specifically, Strauss thought that:
A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured
(the quote is by one of Strauss' main biographers).
Indeed, Stauss used the analogy of Gulliver's Travels to show what a Neocon-run society would look like:
"When Lilliput [the town] was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect." (this quote also from the same biographer)
Moreover, Strauss said:
Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic . . . Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.
So Strauss seems to have advocated governments letting terrorizing catastrophes happen on one's own soil to one's own people -- of "pissing" on one's own people, to use his Gulliver's travel analogy. And he advocates that government's should pretend that they did not know about such acts of mayhem: to intentionally "not know" that Rome is burning. He advocates messing with one's own people in order to save them from some "catastophe" (perhaps to justify military efforts to monopolize middle eastern oil to keep it away from our real threat -- an increasingly-powerful China?).
What does this have to do with religion?
Strauss taught that religion should be used as a way to manipulate people to achieve the aims of the leaders. But that the leaders themselves need not believe in religion.
As Wikipedia notes:
In the late 1990s Irving Kristol and other writers in neoconservative magazines began touting anti-Darwinist views, in support of intelligent design. Since these neoconservatives were largely of secular backgrounds, a few commentators have speculated that this – along with support for religion generally – may have been a case of a "noble lie", intended to protect public morality, or even tactical politics, to attract religious supporters.
So is it any surprise that the folks who planned war against Iraq and Iran at least 20 years ago are pushing religious disinformation to stir up the evangelical community?
Conservative Christians were the biggest backers of the Iraq war. And the Neocons are catering to them to try to back them into war with Iran, as well.
I've recently seen a swarm of spam claiming that all Muslims are evil, that they want to take over the world and establish a Muslim caliphate, and that they want to nuke Iran. They misquote Muslims and use false statements to try to stir up religious hatred.
They are simply promoting the Straussian playbook: stir up religious sentiment - even if you are personally an atheist - to create and demonize an "enemy", so as to promote war ...
NOT A PROBLEM WITH A PARTICULAR RELIGION ... BUT OF IMMATURITY
Most Americans confuse Zionism and Judaism. But many devout Jews are against Zionism, and Zionists can be Christian.
And as I've repeatedly noted, fundamentalist Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all very much alike, and often willing to use violence to spread their ideology ... while more spiritually mature Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all much more tolerant and peaceful than their evangelical brothers:
As Christian writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explained, there are different stages of spiritual maturity. Fundamentalism – whether it be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu fundamentalism – is an immature stage of development. There are peaceful, contemplative Muslim sects – think the poet Rumi the poet and Sufis – and violent sects, just as there are contemplative Christian orders and violent Christian groups (and peaceful and violent atheists).
While there are certainly some Arab terrorists, Islam cannot be blamed for their barbaric murderous actions, just as Christianity cannot be blamed for the Norwegian Christian terrorist - Anders Behring Breivik's actions. University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape – who specializes in international security affairs – points out:
Extensive research into the causes of suicide terrorism proves Islam isn’t to blame — the root of the problem is foreign military occupations.
The 9/11 hijackers used cocaine and drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and attended strip clubs … but they did not worship at any mosque. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. So they were not really Muslims.
And even atheists like Stalin can be terrorists, or at least genocidal maniacs.
Indeed, all religions teach compassion, love and the Golden Rule. Likewise, atheism teaches respect for the individual, the most good for the most people, and helping everyone reach their human potential.
Some within each philosophy follow these teachings, and others want to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them. The issue is not really the label of this religion or that, but of maturity and true spirituality and compassion.
Postscript 1: Neoliberals and Neoconservatives are very similar in many ways. And because Neocons are not conservative, nothing in this post is meant to criticize conservatism.
Postscript 2: Most evangelicals are not dispensationalists, and so do not want to bring on armageddon.
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These people are wack jobs if this is true. Makes domestic terrorist seem tame in comparison
GW. You forgot that Bush and we really did it for the money
Money ISN'T the target, CONTROL is. Money can change from one form to another...
All of the excuses are employed, doesn't matter, people and their programming will saddle up to whatever beast, er a, white horse, and ride it to the end.
Life and how it operates isn't complicated: nearly all of the core stuff found in all religions (and even those that merely live the way and don't need to actually publish or push their ways on others) have the same things in them. The varieties of religions and non-religions(?) are differentiated merely by the fact that they operate under different deceptions, deceptions meant for survival. Many will take this as an affront (who wants to actually take responsibility for their behaviors? pretending to be worthy because one is more pious makes doing the less-desireable things a bit more tolerable [even so far as cheering in murder]), but that's NATURE, and despite any BOOK or other man-made substance, NATURE rules and is in total charge- deception is a key element in/of nature: one can argue whether some "god" controls nature etc etc, but that's a different subject.
So is the point of this 'piece' to convince us that obama is obviously a Christian being as that his ever so Christian self is in hot pursuit of war against Iran?
So is the point of this 'piece' to convince us that obama is obviously a Christian ...
The point of the piece is to equate christian motivation with some Iranian motivation: Christians want war to bring about the return of Jesus; Some Iranians want war to bring about the return of the 12th Imam. See - our motivation is no different from Iran's.
The objective is to help people think there is no difference between the motivations of the two peoples. As tho there are no significant differences between the principles the two different peoples stand for.
I'll buy that. I've long been skeptical of G.W. but I will also acknowledge that the fault might be with me.
Thanks.
C Ya.......
His last points on neo-cons and neo-libs being of the same 'ONE party' is the core issue.
The article that his 'postscript 1' links to is more important. I think we need to get back to tradition and bring back the guillitine. The families and people in power need to have their day on the guillitine podium. WWII was never really resolved. The Machiavellian fascists just shuffled themselves around.
The big war, WWIII, will not be between nations. It's going to be the common man and woman against the Elite. It will be bloody and when its over the Elites will be gone, and so will their families. The Elites have gone too far this time. In their lust for planetary power, they've exposed themselves, openly looting the nations' wealth created by the working classes. They still think enough people are too dumb to see it, but they're wrong. People know.
I wouldn't want to be an "elite' in the coming years. It will be real bad and bloody for them. Nobody will care, though, because everyone hates their guts. There will be no compassion or mercy for them.
When I start to feel like the majority of folks are fucking idiots I am heartened (and somewhat turned around) to see posts like yours receiving a unanimous number of green arrows.
The article that his 'postscript 1' links to is more important. I think we need to get back to tradition and bring back the guillitine. The families and people in power need to have their day on the guillitine podium. WWII was never really resolved. The Machiavellian fascists just shuffled themselves around.
I feel this way, but... and while I don't subscribe to any particular religion, I do NOT advocate this; the reason being is that voluntarily killing others is why we're IN this mess! At some point we've got to understand that, YES, it's the environment; that, YES, we ALL help create these beasts by our continual desire to have "leaders" and others, always failing to get it that they will only succumb to the evils of power. Yeah, the notion that there should be no other ruler of man than some being up in space has a bit of an appeal (to me) in that it conveys that we should NOT be in power over others: and then on the other side I see that we're putting things up in space that have control over us...
Neo-cons and neo-libs ARE the same party, and the religious affectations of many (but not all) of the neo-cons (the neo-libs too, but they are affectating in a somewhat different direction) are probably (I say this as a matter of course because I would not presume to judge what is another's soul) just that, affectations, affected for propaganda purposes; or, perhaps more alarmingly, individual's minds so twisted by power that they put themselves in the place of God, just as do some of the more radical theological systems involved (which, again, the author of above piece does a very poor job of differentiating from more mainstream Christian eschatological thinking). It is quite literally Satanic in nature, a reversal of the religion of the people practiced by the elites with themselves and their own power as the only God that they regard.
BTW as I said somewhere else in terms of eschatology certain strains of liberal Christianity, and the most stringent and militant sorts of dominionism are almost identical, although the groups endorse different politics. Interesting parallel with regards to 'the same party.'
I think that Ron Paul sums it up better than anyone else:
We've Been Neo-Connedhttp://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul110.html
George - you've done a great thing here. Draw out all these fucking bible-thumpers and their "knowing-bullshit." It's stuff like this that reminds me why we're so fucked, I forget sometimes how the little minds are still hunkered down in their caves racked with fear but finding their answers in a fucking black book that reads like shit. All these hypocrites want answers? Well here's your answer, it's tried and true and it presents itself every second of every day - Yipeee, we're all gonna die - oohrah.
I suggest some organics and a little Aphex Twin w/ the black-light on as high as it will go. Oh, don't forget the condoms (or the heat-em-up gel) and that special friend(s).
When you use more than 5% of your brain you don't want to be on earth, believe me. Not that your take-out places aren't lovely, but there is many more exciting destinations for smarter people. - Bob Diamond.
Ill take bible thumpers living productive, well mannered lives over conspiracy theorist OWS scumbags anyday.
(split off from other post as it's a totally different topic, but still very important ...) Calling Anders Breivik a "Christian terrorist" and comparing him as such to Islamist terrorists is deeply misleading and intellectually dishonest. He may have nominally been a Christian, but his Christianity does not seem to have played a major part in the ideological impetus of his terrorism; whereas the precise opposite is the case with radical Islam which uses terrorism as a political weapon, where the driving factor is the religious ideology. Breivik's motivation appears to have been ideological, but not religious in nature. Same thing with Timothy McVeigh, etc. This is either about a politically correctness, and a search for a Christian counterpart to Islamic terrorism, or it is about militant anti-theism attempting to draw a comparison where there is none to draw.
Christianity supports an ideology.
From that point, it becomes difficult for people who are not gifted with US citizenism mindset to distinguish between the religious and ideological motives.
You should be willing to admit though, that the Crusades were led by Christians thinking they were performing "God's work."
Sure, I have no problem admitting that, with the caveat that there were a lot of geopolitical and social concerns that motivated people to go Crusading in those days that were not specifically religious in nature even if the overriding ideology of the movement was religious ... but I'm sure the exact same case is true for those taking up the sword or the suicide jacket in the name of Islam today.
The Crusades don't have very much to do with the topic at hand, though. Making the point that somewhere in the history of Christianity violence has been done under the banner of the cross is hardly breaking new ground. Of course not all Christians have behaved themselves perfectly over all time. The point here is that Brievik, McVeigh, etc. are called something they are not ("Christian terrorists") for political reasons and that is wrong.
I think the point is that inflexible religious zealots are inflexible religious zealots regardless of what 'religion' or 'theocracy' they proclaim to be representing. They are all based soley on faith, they all puport to be the one and only 'true' religion and they are all instruments used to control ignorant populations too lazy to think for themselves.
"with the caveat that there were a lot of geopolitical and social concerns that motivated people to go Crusading in those days that were not specifically religious in nature even if the overriding ideology of the movement was religious"
EXACTLY! (no, I'm not saying this in defense of "religion")
As I REPEATEDLY spew: IT'S POWER THAT'S THE PROBLEM!
People within a religion either need to get their religions in order (sue the fuckers who abuse the rights to your various books), or come to grips with the fact that you're supporting such behavior (by not speaking out).
Sadly, I suspect that, as always the case, that those sucking up to power (religious or secular) do so for self-interests and manage to rationalize away the bad stuff.
When your leaders fuck up then YOU cannot turn your head. And the REALITY is is the pervasiveness of religion in the thoughts and actions of our leaders of today. Again, if religion doesn't promote the things that we're seeing then why does it sit idly by, why do its "leaders" support/sidle up to politicians, never seeming to condemn their actions as long as they praise Allah/God/whatever?
Gott Mit Uns?
P.S. WTF about the GOP debates in South Carolina and Florida? Did people miss the negative reaction to Ron Paul? No, this mindset isn't fringe.
breivik is about as christian as nethanyoohoo.
those kids got offed for taking a pro palestinian stance.
get a clue gw.
http://edlnews.co.uk/edl-news/page-10
You don't get it do you?
They are like blood brothers : Crusaders and Jihadists; the fight is NOT between christian and moslem, as its not about what goes on inside each family : between sunni and shiia, no more than it is between catholic and protestant or orthodox; Its between secular civilization and creationist, dogmatic cvilization. Separation of state politics and personal spiritual quest based on revelatory belief.
Christianity, as all Abrahamic civilizations, needs DOGMA to be dominant. Whereas the Socratico-Aristotelian legacy is logic and empiricism. DOgma has no place in it, as prime political and social mover.
Either you believe in one or the other; the dividing line that engulfs the current geo-political construct. We cannot go back to regressionary values, whatever our religion.
The issue is not is christianity better than Islam. Its that secular civilization forces us to forbid INSTRUMENTALISATION OF GOD FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES. From whichever side.
Well, it appears that your elevator didn't exactly go to the top floor either. So, I'll help you out...
IT'S ABOUT POWER AND CONTROL. Power and control means survival. All else is just lipstick on the pig. It's all about human deception.
Religion aided people in survival. Cultures we dominated by a specific religion (or, in some cases, slight variants). What you'll find is LOTS of stuff that was extremely necessary for survival, such as what to eat and what not to eat, and how to prepare food etc.. In order to get the live-saving points across it was necessary to over-simplify the message: not that this is all that different today.
BOTTOM LINE: If there were infinite resources available there wouldn't be hostilities. ALL WARS are over resources; it's just that most are sold to us as a pig with lipstick. "Go forth and multiply" was always going to run into problems...
Origen, Pseudo-Dionysus, etc. were all neo-Platonists; the entire Scholastic system was Aristotelean in construction. This is a false dichotomy.
No infinite growth in a finite world. In a finite world, someone always has to die in order for the new growth to thrive. Plagues and famines used to take care of that. Now that we have penicillin, it must be taken care of with wars and ethnic cleansings.
No such thing as Socratico-Aristotelian logic. Aristotle was more Platonic than Socratic. Indeed, the entire 'historic' account of Greek philosophy needs a revision seeing as there wasn't a linear progression.
Greek Antiquity is in contrast to Judaism/Christianity, however that isn't to say it stands in opposition to the Greek Divine reason. At least for Christianity as early theologians like Origen and Clement adopted Christianity as part of Greek philosophy. Basically, it isn't an Either/Or situation. It is, however, the age old problem of how much goes unto Caesar and how much onto God.
Binary "creationist vs evolution" is hardly something America needs more of as this is an absurd and meaningless exercise. 'Dogma' is the very essence of science and an outgrowth of religion so the entire premise is absolutely false.
Clean up after your dogma.
...or at least curb it.
C'mon Gene, your splitting hairs; Socrates never wrote; by Xenophon's words he appeared more cynical in his belief in "truth" and "justice". But Plato used him to define his own value systems of forms or ideas/ideals. Aristotle took the whole shooting match to focus around "reality" as he invented Analytical logic based on fact; not on ideas as per Plato's dialogues and Republic.
So now we had, in addition to dialectics or the debate about ideas, the reality of debate about consequence of facts. Modern logic was born, both inductive and deductive and completed the rhetoric and semantics of Socrates, as seen thru Plato and Xenophons' eyes. You know how Aristotle and his vision of Cosmos and Metaphysics will influence all who succeed him; Arabs and Scholastics, all embroiled in reconciling Reason and Dogma during the middle age scholastic period. Same debate in Islam : Philosophus Autodidactus vs Theologus Autodidactus. In the West Science and Philosophus Autodidactus will triumph; in Islam it will be the contrary. So the medieval christian period from Dictatus Papae days thru Laude Novae Militiae to Latran IV theocratic idiocy of uber-alles dogma; none of which is effective in modern west, aka Malta is the last Catholic country to have made divorce now legal in 2011; shows you that the Aristotelian strain has won in West. Game over. Lets not split hairs over this. How 'dogma' is deemed the very essence of Science is beyond me. Its empiricism which is the very essence of science. Religion has to stay a private matter, not public domain.
falak,
We've had this discussion before and this needs your attention. Firstly, Aristotle did no such thing as invent 'Analytical Logic'. Logic is transcendental. His 'Politics' have little to do with the man who was 'a gadly of the State'. Secondly, you can hardly draw upon the Ancients as the finest example of present day struggles in the West.
'In the West Science and Philosophus Autodidactus will triumph; in Islam it will be the contrary.'
Wow. How do I even begin to dignify such a statement? That sounds like prophecy to me, falak.
'How 'dogma' is deemed the very essence of Science is beyond me.'
Ask Newton, the man who believed if all particles could be located the future could be known therefore controlled, also the man who carried the Bible under his arm everywhere he went. Of course, this was later shaken by Quantum physics and the anti-causalist movement in science. Relativity came in place of dogmatic causality.
Find some other scientists/philosophers outside of this realm of thinking, there are the fideists who you might find interesting. I'd happily propose some names if I knew they'd be welcome.
philosophus autodidactus = scientific method! Ever done research? That's what it is. You don't talk to God when you are on the front of knowledge curve. You talk to empiricial data and use deduction/theory. Par essence Philosophus autodidactus! Whats your problem???
Is it semantics or are you on another planet??
Neither Newton nor Einstein, as well Planck, EVER USED Godly-revelatory concepts in their works, whatever they may have carried in their under-wear. You have lost it. A scientist is what he does not what animates his subjective inner soul. Who cares about that! Its his work that history/science remembers!
Newton was very much a student of Biblical prophecy and eschatology; look into it. Einstein spoke often of God albeit in a Deistic or panentheistic sort of way. And "who cares about" "what animates his subjective inner soul?" I find that comment sad. And not just as a Christian, but I find the idea that there is no space for the finer things, for spirituality and art and love and philosophy and the feeling of sublimity that comes from a peak on LSD or 5-MeO-DMT, or anything of the sort ... I find that sad and repulsive, and that is EXACTLY what is spoken by saying who cares about what animates the subjective inner soul. I hope you mean something else.
Falak, could you latinise the phrase to shoot oneself in the foot for us?
please see: http://www.bibleprophecyupdate.com/http:/www.bibleprophecyupdate.com/ame...
.....apparently Newton, for one, thought otherwise about his "works"...the linked piece describes in fascinating detail the seriousness your 'scientist' applied to "see[ing] God’s actions in the world.” from the article - "The end of days will see “the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom,” he posited."
In your haste here to dispose of your opponent's argument, you have actually exposed the achilles heel of your whole approach, as your serial insistence on conflating 'science' and 'empirical method' has led you astray in a manner best left out of the, er, public domain.
Science, Falak, as it is practiced by adherents to the religion of scientificism, is as riddled with dogma and subjectivity as any of the theological systems you seek to malign. It's exactly because you choose to ignore the empirical evidence of that fact that "how 'dogma' is deemed the very essence of Science is beyond me"[your quote] is the truest thing you say here! You wish to see dogma only in the theologians' self deceptions, and keep your philosopher/scientist free of the taint of it; your unable to see your own subjective desires to keep the two separate and compartmentalized, exactly as the 'scientist' longs for the same unattainable dream of object free of subject. A hopeful, and hopeless conceit, dear sir.
Yours is a world of false dichotomies, of secular and spiritual, objective and subjective, reason versus superstition...the wonderful synchronicity of your slashing attack here and the just released news about 'the other Newton' is a most interesting example of the mysterious trajectories of real life unencumbered by the constraints you would wish your God "logic" to place upon it!
As you famously said....Game over! Gene's match.
*here's a fine topical example of my point, impeccably suited for the subject at hand on this thread! http://news.yahoo.com/vindicated-ridiculed-israeli-scientist-wins-nobel-...
You don't read the whole story : science is what it does. Not the buzz and the fuzz. You are more interested in buzz and fuzz of concepts that have no real evidence. God, Abrahamic ones, are Man's creation. So don't tangentialize logic into debased form of a higher word, written by divine providence; in mysterious zig-zagging of higher minds in spiritual levitation of unimaginable dimension.
If that higher word exists, it is incomprehensible to us, and is certainly not this "poured in concrete" and stultified version, that the revelatory books concoct as the supreme vision of all-eternal life, passed on by "prophets of eternal truth".
Gene has a way of side stepping the issues, he will dissert on the meaning of "autodidactus", as if that was crucial to the argument.
So to all those who believe that the revelatory word is "poured in concrete", I say, if you want to understand Newton, Galileo and Einstein, look in their underwear, not in their written word!
Over and out!
'Gene has a way of side stepping the issues, he will dissert on the meaning of "autodidactus", as if that was crucial to the argument.'
falak, you write a mish-mash of historicism, scientism and weird ethico-philosophical cloaked nonsense. On top of that you've decided that I belong in the 'poured in concrete' category of your own making. I've kindly asked you to look elsewhere and perhaps beyond these childish interpretations of the age old FAITH vs REASON. You seriously need to look to a deeper epistemological understanding before flying into historic comparisons. More importantly, you need a good orientation toward Kant as you seem in Cartesian daze.
Lastly, I've sidestepped nothing. Newton has nothing to do with our good old ZH. A nice reading on the 'nature' of money is found under ANTHROPOLGY not physics which speaks of the physical world and the relations thereupon. If you do not understand this you're deeply confused. As I've said look to a more intricate understanding of psychology, sociology and maybe even linguistics. Once you've that we can discuss things more clearly.
Finally, science is in crisis exactly because of this: people confusing their worlds while hyperspecialists make attempts at sloppy system building beyond their comprehension ability. Hegel is an example of this and has gotten only worse since.
There is no scientcism there, I wouldn't even know what it means. I am not deterministic in any methodology I use except empiricism. No system buliding. Historical analogy is not system building. Its stays a simple exercise if we don't push it too far. Excluding the revelatory word from one's analysis is not system building. Its staying coherent with empirical laws. A system means a preconcieved model, à prioiri, that precludes empirical proof, until it has been substantiated, à posteriori, by those very means. That's not what it do. Your cross referencing, as above, is interesting; but it stays reductive in its application as portrayed in your comments. As for the meat of your argument : defining a complex "system" approach based on the multiple system criteria that you define : psy, socio, lingui, science, etc., it is one hellava construct.
I would not venture to synthesise such a complex view of social systems. Those who do, would have to define such a complex set of intricate rules that it would be beyond all current constructs; economical, scientific etc. I'm not saying its not worth trying. I'm saying its beyond me. ANd I've never seen anybody provide a rational system that dovetails all these perceptions in a coherent ALL. Good luck, is all I can say! Hegel is indeed limited if you can play in this complex rubic cubic, on an empirically proven basis, in finito.
that's some fancy side steps you got there yourself! Talk about pot n kettle! C'mon back down to earth son! You can't win a debate by imputing words to others that do not belong to them...you gave us to understand you had some glancing knowledge of rhetoric squire!>!?!? Speaking of not reading, I do wish you had taken the time to peruse the links...you seem in an Almighty hurry today!
btw...science does what it does...but doesn't put in place the necessary controls to account for thinking it can do what it likes without having to account for the subjectivity of the observer. Thats not very empirical!
you are cicumlocutary like this financial crisis. Don't blame science for your incommensurable existantial problems, something that nobody can solve, and to which spirits in need of a universal truth rush, in order to protect their own vision of the world.
Mine is simple : we are mortal, we have simple rules to survive. Civilization requires that we respect the hierarchy of empirical laws, not revelatory laws, that feed an elite theocracy, elder brother of a materialistic oligarchy. Two faces of the same coin. The two swords of feudal society now reappearing like an old hallucination haunting a regressionary civilization.
I prefer, the empirical route, trial and error, and rules that reveal themselves as history unveils the pros and cons of man's own hubrisitc ambitions.
I am no sophist so arguments beyond a point make no sense... I hope you understand.
I do understand that my point BOUT pot n kettle went right over your head, and as well that you are not going to examine any of the holes in your previous argument for fear that the whole edifice may come down! This is your choice to make, and I have no further comment to make upon it...you are simply huffin n puffin at this point.
I will buy your book though, I'm glad you included the ebook option. The mysteries of the cathari and the troubadours are a fascinating topic(De Rougemont's classic Love in the Western World was one of the only three books I selected to take when escaping the fallen lands). Perhaps in reading it, I will gain some insight into what has made you into such the militant secularist!
I fear to disappoint you, I'm a simple artisan, purple prosed amateur of my boyhood idol : Alexander Dumas, but I have pushed the historical analysis a wee bit further than he did.
Autodidaktos of Greek origin means simply self-taught. Only a simple word.
You're imagining a conflict. I'm certain, if you're in Europe, that nobody is imposing a theodidactic weltanschauung on you.
Semantics? Problems? Neither my friend, I cannot help you. A snake that doesn't shed its skin dies.
Newton, in fact, wrote about theology outside of scientific writing, yes. He probably had a decent grasp on what later became the Kantian categorical imperative. Something missing from todays poor understanding of continental philosophy.
Not necessarily true. What does matter is the role each plays in your life.
in public affairs, religious slant/dogma is not the way the state works. In most western countries.
Which religious creed do our Federal and State Constitutions, and Federal and State laws and regulations, most reflect - Muslim or Christianity? When you truely understand the answer, you will understand how incorrect your statement is: in public affairs, religious slant/dogma is not the way the state works.
Religion always comes first. The state comes second, and reflects the existing religious belief. Study the history of nations back to the dawn of recorded history.
It's all a bit like shifting sands, is it not?
The founders of the Constitution made no direct statement within the two controlling documents: Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Reference to "God" was inserted into various nationalistic activities during the commie-phobic era, not the days of founding.
And funny that it is that folks in the US are asked to "swear to God" to uphold constitutional activities, yet the very Constitution itself says that there should be no religious tests required ["to any Office or public trust under the United States"].
AnAnonymous IS right in noting how fucking hypocritical the US is.
But, this is all no more than a distraction such as TPTB (religious or otherwise) wish in order that they stay in their positions of power and control.
Not in France, not in USA, not in Brittain, not in Germany. All are secular in law making.
Now that's funny. Let's start with Roe v. Wade.
Its the application of law that is biaised. Most laws are not religiously slanted. But the way the judge decides...
Really. French veil laws (you opened the door to France upthread) are not religiously slanted?
No they are not, they are secular slanted. Its defending feminine dignity; no walking tents in France. You've chosen a bad example: the burqa is not a religious obligation, its a social perversion of 'fundamentalist' Islam. There is no requirement in Islam that a woman hides here face and body. So in the context of western civilisation, where woman's rights are paramount, the burqa is a desecration of woman's rights. That is the legal basis of that law. Like for excision, like for medically assisted abortion willed by the woman, secular LaW allows it as woman's free right. It therefore entails, in legal terms, that the pregnant woman has total liberty to decide over the fate of her own creation.
I am using this last case as example of secular law, a much more controversial issue than burqa or excision in western society.
Your argument is dead from beginning, in my book. WOman's rights. Legacy of human rights, UN 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt's legacy to the ages. It stands in my book. Maybe not in your's. But its the LAW, in ALL western societies who are signatories of the 1948 law on human rights.
Secular LAW over-rides religious custom of medieval times, often a perversion of so called "revelatory" word of God.
You go off on a tangent about burqas, tents and what Islam requires and what it doesn't. I am quite familiar with what Islam requires. The point is that the law in France is not secular and for you to believe that is naive. What compels a woman to wear a nijab or burqa is moot in the context of this discussion; what IS relevant is that they are Muslim.
Then you go off on a tangent about secular law, human rights and Eleanor fucking Roosevelt for Christ's sake.
Frances veil law is as much about woman's rights as the American Civil War was about emancipation. It is at it's root Islamophobia. Fear, control, divide and conquer.
I challenged your assertion that western civilizations laws are secular. I stand by that challenge and nothing you have stated changes that. To deny the influence of religion in the making of laws is to deny the influence of thousands of years of history.