If you ruled...

[Awar]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

And yet you've voted for Judaism which in many cases denies that the laws of the non Jews may rule over the Jews.

In my perfect state, people would get thrown in jail for disrespecting laws.

And I thought that an Agnostic would consider it perfect that there was no official relation of the government with any religion.
Or, more likely, an Agnostic should not care much if there is an official relation, providing that it is not harmful to his own interests.

The official position would be that it's impossible to determine if a deity exists, and therefore relying on logic and what is known is imperative.

Thus, no decisions of the government could be inspired by god, gods, evil spirits, omens etc.

The beauty of those buildings was created out of the spirituality of the religious people who built them. When you looked at them you should think that your ideal religion status would have never been able to reach that beauty.

1. There's no evidence the architects were true believers.
2. I find a lot of the old christian architecture kitschy and painfully amateurish, but I respect its age and role.

Could you explain that more in detail?

I think I did in the other post.

Yes, with say Agnosticism the truth is that today you might be something different altogether. And you might not like it, although you would have been raised in that and generations before you. So you might not even care.. or you might seen as those who were raised into that something else do care.

Could you explain that?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Awar

Because atheism means the denial of god, not denial of everything which is unknown.

What is unknown becomes, to the yes of humans, non existant. And also a god is unknown to them and, as you just said, for that they deny the existance of a god.

Besides, through the trials of 'survival of the fittest' we got our society

Through the survival of the fittest we got the primitive societies. There was a time when the fittest protected and guided those who seemed less fit. And that gave civilisations. Today it is, again, the survival of the fittest and our societies are losing at it.

in fact, most people abide to those rules with morals being there just as window-dressing.

Whatever the reason why some people abide to those rules, they are there because there is a society with a majority which believes in a Creator, and thus believe that humans are more than just a piece of meat and bones. And even those who abide to the rules of moral human behaviour as window-dressing as you say, do so because they believe, or at least suspect, that we are more than just carrion for the vultures and the worms.

Human kind has like a river made it's way through thousands of years of history, and in the process carved the way things work.

That's the process between to savage beasts to humans, and then apparently back to savage beasts agains.

It's obvious that a crude form of survival-of-the-fittest would definitely cause any complex civilization to collapse.

Would the actual liberal materialism seem to you as crude enough? Or maybe we should join some lunatics that you know as well as I do, and agree on other causes to today's collapse of civilization?

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by etoile noir

however does that really differ greatly from christians who are trained from infancy to "turn the other cheek"?.

Are you talking about the religion of Charles Martel, Crusaders or Reconquista's soldiers ?

islam on the other hand is an agressive creed that teaches its followers to actually wage war on infidels, i.e. you, me and anyone else who is not moslem. therefore i can't ever see buddhism ever being as dangerous as islam

In a sense Buddhism can be more dangerous than Islam. Islam is violent, that's why Muslim immigrants create many problems and more and more Europeans don't like them. But just imagine if all those immigrants in Europe were Buddhists. They would be pacific, mix much more with us, ... And finally Europe would racially, culturally and spiritually disappear.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Awar

btw. most often, you guys mix christianity-the-tradition with christianity-the-religion.

Who is "you guys"? There you err. Don't assume too much.

All of my forefathers fought to preserve their own, not because they were christians ( there's no proof they were really believers ), but because they were brave men and knew when to fight what belongs to them.

If that had been the case, they wouldn't have fought any further their valley village in the mountains, and thus they would have perished. Give it a few more minutes of thinking.

If Europe was a tree, its roots would be ancient Greece, the trunk would be christianity, and the modern times would be hundreds of branches and leafs which build on the experiences of old.

Those leaves are not going to stand there if you let the trunk to die.

To respect the tradition doesn't require us to be the same as our ancestors.

And to evolve does not require to reject everything that has been good and healthy since our ancestors. In fact, to evolve it is required to preserve the foundation, and to preserve them one must take care of them, respect them, love them.

We are not evolving anymore. We are in a process of involution.

If Europeans were all true believers in christianity and its teachings, we'd have been ran over by outsiders centuries ago. The reason why Europe survived is in between.
It's in the interaction of the religion with the rulling elite and its decisions, and the common man and his striving to survive and keep things from deteriorating.

This is where you have assumed things that are not, generalized them ("you guys"), and erred.

What makes you think that to me Christianism is just and/or exactly what came from Judea? Why do you think that I often argue that Christianism (and here I only admit western, i.e. Catholic, and easter, i.e. Orthodox) has nothing of the false allegations of Judeo-Chrisitianism?

I wouldn't mind to explain it, but I am surprised that I might have to explain it to you.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Awar

In my perfect state, people would get thrown in jail for disrespecting laws.

Do you think that Jews were persecuted for other reasons?

The official position would be that it's impossible to determine if a deity exists, and therefore relying on logic and what is known is imperative.

If non religious, why should a Government take an official religion and thus influence on the spirituality (or lack of) of the people that it rules over?

Thus, no decisions of the government could be inspired by god, gods, evil spirits, omens etc.

And yet, under your scheme, the government would rule on god's existance over the beliefs of its subjects.

1. There's no evidence the architects were true believers.
2. I find a lot of the old christian architecture kitschy and painfully amateurish, but I respect its age and role.

1.

The Holy Family Temple in Barcelona, by Antoni Gaudí. Read here:
Gaudi the Blessed

2. How old is old?

Cathedral of Burgos, Northern Castilla.

I think I did in the other post.

No, you didn't.

Could you explain that?

Awar, damn it! It's 1:00am!

It boils down to what we have been discussing before. Your ancestors did not resist to Islam because they were Serbs, they did so because they were Serbs and Christian Orthodox. What if.. well, Serbia might be no different to say, Albania.

[etoile noir]

without wanting another mini saga with Ederico and Mynydd, may i post the following, taken from The Social Contract [Rousseau] regarding Christian "warriors"?

"Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by such a régime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too little in their eyes.

I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny it. Show me an instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I shall be told of the Crusades. Without disputing the valour of the Crusaders, I answer that, so far from being Christians, they were the priests' soldiery, citizens of the Church. They fought for their spiritual country, which the Church had, somehow or other, made temporal. Well understood, this goes back to paganism: as the Gospel sets up no national religion, a holy war is impossible among Christians.

Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were brave; every Christian writer affirms it, and I believe it: it was a case of honourable emulation of the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were Christian, this emulation no longer existed, and, when the Cross had driven out the eagle, Roman valour wholly disappeared.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by etoile noir

without wanting another mini saga with Ederico and Mynydd, may i post the following, taken from The Social Contract [Rousseau] regarding Christian "warriors"?

Meaning, please do not discuss about it?

"Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by such a régime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too little in their eyes.

I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny it. Show me an instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I shall be told of the Crusades. Without disputing the valour of the Crusaders, I answer that, so far from being Christians, they were the priests' soldiery, citizens of the Church. They fought for their spiritual country, which the Church had, somehow or other, made temporal. Well understood, this goes back to paganism: as the Gospel sets up no national religion, a holy war is impossible among Christians.

Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were brave; every Christian writer affirms it, and I believe it: it was a case of honourable emulation of the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were Christian, this emulation no longer existed, and, when the Cross had driven out the eagle, Roman valour wholly disappeared.

Oh! But I know that piece of nonsense! Linking Rome's decline to Chrisitianism.

Rome's decline had started well before Christianity became the official religion. If something, it was Christianity that prolongued the days of Rome. That piece is obsolete.

Now, how about coming with something more actual and, hopefully, of your own?

[Revolutionary]

This is only my second post in this site (and the first one was pretty short anyway), but I hope to be more active in this site as time goes by.

Returning to the subject at hand, I voted for Paganism. I think that it is quite difficult to say that you are 'X' (resembling an established religion), because in the end it is impossible to conform completely with every rule it has.

Firstly I must explain what I define as 'God' or 'gods'. I couldn't care less about who or what created all existance, but if I did, I would surely not attribute it to any higher being or anything of that sort. I think that it is a waste of time to think about the origins of existance because a mere human will never be able to answer this question. Ancient Greek philosphers seem to have understood that they were wasting their time on this question because we witness a shift from 'existential' philosophy (Thales, Anaximender, etc...) to a more scientific (Pythagoras, Aristotle, etc...) and politically oriented philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc...) as time went by. I find this shift very rational. Unfortunately, the philosophical vacuum left after the fall of the Roman Empire was filled by a religious philosophers who persecuted any people who tried to promote scientific development and who supported any institution which hindered any dream of political development.

Returning to my definition of God or gods. I do not believe in one omni-potent God. I believe that humans exist to rule themselves and to create their own 'commandments' on which to live. I consider as a god a person who has done such great things that are inconcievable to any normal human being. Those who know me surely know to whom I am referring to (for those who are in the dark on my leanings, I worship Napoleon Bonaparte ).

Paganism is also a very flexible belief, every individual is free to have his own idols. I wouldn't consider Pagainism as a religion because it depends on the angle it is looked at, for example Sunni Muslims consider Roman Catholics as Pagans because they 'worship' their saints in material forms (statues, paintings, etc...), while the Roman Catholics say that they are worshiping the one same God as the Muslims. I could go into more detail on this subject but I think that my point is quite clear already.

Now, on my opinion on religions in general. I would exclude every religion from any connections with the running of the state and I would limit the public practice of all religions. Citizens would be free to follow their religion privately, but public practices would be limited to a bare minimum if not suppressed altogether. I consider the public practice of any religion as a useless dividing factor in a society. I'll take the Catholic Church as an example. In my opinion, a mass is just a group of people who listen to readings which they can do on their own at home and a lot of repetitive praying, which can also be done at home. In the past, when a large number of the lower class citizens were illiterate (as in Malta's case), many people could only know the 'word of God' by having it read out to them (after Vatican II) but in our times this need has almost disappeared.

Better stop now before I bore you to death or offend anyone else's beliefs .



Spread the Word


Revolutionary

[Theobald]

And I don't think quoting Rousseau is a good thing. He and his fellows philosophers caused the French revolution, therefore more or less our current situation. He isn't a model at all.
When I hear the word "Rousseau", I reach for my gun.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Revolutionary

Better stop now before I bore you to death or offend anyone else's beliefs .

http://recursos.cnice.mec.es/bancoim...p3/hi00653.mp3


Not that I agree with you and I think that most things are linked to what I've said posts above. But overall a good post (at least of your own harvest, not copy & paste )

[Gil]

Rome's decadence is due to internal warfare (read imperial backstabbing) and their policy of allowing the gothic tribes to join their ranks....which lead to the barbarians achieving power in the outlying limes and eventually controlling those territories.

Mynnyd: wait a sec, what do you mean by:

What makes you think that to me Christianism is just and/or exactly what came from Judea? Why do you think that I often argue that Christianism (and here I only admit western, i.e. Catholic, and easter, i.e. Orthodox) has nothing of the false allegations of Judeo-Chrisitianism?

??? Wasn't Jesus an hebrew (hence a jew)? According to his lineage, as described in the Bible, he was of the tribe of David....
How can a Christian, who believes in Christ and his Apostles, disconnect it's religious belief from it's source, Judaism? Even if Christianity diverges from Judaism in some key aspects, aren't it's most basic concepts of hebrew origin? The Old Testament, including the 10 Comandments and such, are all interconnected to hebrew history! I'm not making an attack on the Christians, i'm just trying to udnerstand how can one deny the origin of it's religious beliefs.

[etoile noir]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Meaning, please do not discuss about it?

no Mynydd, meaning i don't want to argue with you further - nor with Ederico.

Oh! But I know that piece of nonsense! Linking Rome's decline to Chrisitianism.
Rome's decline had started well before Christianity became the official religion. If something, it was Christianity that prolongued the days of Rome. That piece is obsolete.

no comment.

Now, how about coming with something more actual and, hopefully, of your own?

You dismiss Rousseau as nonsense and you want something from me?
the former is preposterous, the latter i am not willing to provide, not at this point in time, nor at this hour.