well exactly, they've been a very strong organising influence throughout almost all of recorded history, it's been a good run. I reckon it's time we slowly but surely move on into a post-faith reality. Which seems to be happening in Europe at least.
I don't, I know much of their lives were devoted to seeking philosophically valid proofs-of-god which is part of the reason for their lasting fame, in that sense they were never non believers. But they approached the subject much differently than most and contemporaries might have even considered it offensive.uziq wrote:
to call aquinas 'agnostic' is to misunderstand the term or to use it in a wrong historical context. the entire point of doubt was very different for medieval theologians. it was a necessary step to proving a higher faith, not of being 'in doubt' about the existence of god in the same way that you or i would be 'agnostic' in the 21st century. most of the church fathers, including augustine, were at one point or another 'agnostic', literally doubting the existence of god, or god as he is presented; several of jesus' apostles were agnostic and had famous moments of doubt, equivocation, crises of faith. hence you have 'doubting thomas', doubting peter, doubting simon (who became paul, literally the founder of the entire catholic church).
kierkegaard, in the 19th century, the great christian existentialist with his 'leap of faith' and talk of absurd belief, as well as pascal before him, extended this tradition of 'radical' religious doubt; descartes and cartesianism are extensions of this doubt, and similarly are concerned with 'rationally' proving the existence of god/the absolute. do NOT confuse these people as 'agnostics' in the sense we use today.
Fair enough and that I can somewhat agree with.uziq wrote:
i didn't say anywhere that people 'need' religion to get along or act ethically. that is an altogether different argument and is extremely spurious. i said for many people religion is a good conduit of their energies, a positive and constructive thing in their life that encourages good conduct inasmuch as for others it can lead to extremism, dogmatism, intolerance, hatred rather than love, etc. i certainly have never needed religious precept or the fear of damnation to encourage me to be moral or good to someone; that is not my point. my point is everybody worships, in some form or another, whether they worship money/status, their own intelligence or 'reason', their social tribe or nationality, etc. people are susceptible to all sorts of ideological hooks and crooks.
So is your worship that pile of literature which you have in your study/studio/appartment somewhere?
Last edited by Larssen (2020-09-21 09:52:34)
yes, point taken about aquinas/augustine. they were definitely independently minded and critical thinkers, where others might have just been adherents. although, saying that, doubt and interrogation, personal commitment, etc, have always been integral to christianity.
humanism can broadly be understood as a sort of worship, sure, most -isms can be seen as crystallisations or calcifications in that way. i'm sure eramus looked at it in that way, too.
sure, but as i said, the religious/faith-based impulse is still very strong. nationalism was arguably just a new mass hysteria/irrationalism, concomitant to the 'waning' of religious belief and identity. the nazis were a religious phenomenon. the 19th century, and the age of enlightenment generally, was just a transference of that worship from god to man and then to the state/nation. and many more forms and excrescences of irrational belief can and will appear.Larssen wrote:
well exactly, they've been a very strong organising influence throughout almost all of recorded history, it's been a good run. I reckon it's time we slowly but surely move on into a post-faith reality. Which seems to be happening in Europe at least.
“Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity. The Greeks had a beautiful word for ‘vulgarity’; they called it apeirokalia, lack of experience in things beautiful.” – leo strauss.Larssen wrote:
So is your worship that pile of literature which you have in your study/studio/appartment somewhere?
humanism can broadly be understood as a sort of worship, sure, most -isms can be seen as crystallisations or calcifications in that way. i'm sure eramus looked at it in that way, too.
Last edited by uziq (2020-09-21 10:24:17)
Interesting, I hadn't considered looking at nationalism through a lens of religious experience. My view rather was the other way around, looking at religious practice more as just another process of identity formation. There's value in the vice-versa perspective that might have some more explanatory power when analysing the fanatic, and the historical evolution is also illuminating in a sense. In problematic ways too, as it leaves one to wonder at a deeper level if multinational or cultural organisation is compatible with that belief system.uziq wrote:
yes, point taken about aquinas/augustine. they were definitely independently minded and critical thinkers, where others might have just been adherents. although, saying that, doubt and interrogation, personal commitment, etc, have always been integral to christianity.
sure, but as i said, the religious/faith-based impulse is still very strong. nationalism was arguably just a new mass hysteria/irrationalism, concomitant to the 'waning' of religious belief and identity. the nazis were a religious phenomenon. the 19th century, and the age of enlightenment generally, was just a transference of that worship from god to man and then to the state/nation. and many more forms and excrescences of irrational belief can and will appear.
Leo's an interesting person to quote by the way as many associate him with illiberalism.uziq wrote:
“Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity. The Greeks had a beautiful word for ‘vulgarity’; they called it apeirokalia, lack of experience in things beautiful.” – leo strauss.
humanism can broadly be understood as a sort of worship, sure, most -isms can be seen as crystallisations or calcifications in that way. i'm sure eramus looked at it in that way, too.
Last edited by Larssen (2020-09-21 10:42:21)
many of the greatest thinkers in the post-1950s were anti-humanists or critics of liberalism. but just as secular critique stems from christianity in many ways, so they too come from the liberal-enlightenment tradition. doesn't mean they are against the entire project. adorno and horkheimer spent their entire careers critiquing enlightenment's values which, to them, they thought led to the holocaust if unexamined. the point was they were examining it. neither were endorsing a return to pre-enlightenment.
the 19th century nation state was in many cases an explicit substitution for the church. it was there in their very constitutions. robespierre created a very bizarre cult of excellence/rationalism around the state. the nazis were extremely volkisch and interested in all sorts of pagan occultism as well as christianity (didn't himmler have some weird castle that sat on some ancient ley-lines, and in dungeon of which he did all sorts of weird teutonic knight rituals?). nationalism has often been tinged with a religious/irrational fervour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Supreme_Being
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wewelsburg#North_Tower
the 19th century nation state was in many cases an explicit substitution for the church. it was there in their very constitutions. robespierre created a very bizarre cult of excellence/rationalism around the state. the nazis were extremely volkisch and interested in all sorts of pagan occultism as well as christianity (didn't himmler have some weird castle that sat on some ancient ley-lines, and in dungeon of which he did all sorts of weird teutonic knight rituals?). nationalism has often been tinged with a religious/irrational fervour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Supreme_Being
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wewelsburg#North_Tower
Last edited by uziq (2020-09-21 10:51:38)
Thinking about it a little more it's clear, yes. The replacement of the christian calendar by one in which the starting year marked the beginning of the french revolution for one. Not only was their effort to do away with the ancien regime but perhaps even also to emulate religion in a way and spark similar fervor in their rabid quest to reorganise all of society. Indeed also the quest to dig into national (pagan) histories and find the old mythologies to create a story of the nation through time etc. The evolution of nationalism also coincides with Weber's complaint about the Entzauberung der Welt, so yes I see how nationalism helped replace the emptiness left by modernisation. There's many arguments you could bring to the fore.
Probably must've been explored by someone but if not you may have a good op-ed or article on your hands here, ey. May also cause many on the alt-right to start frothing at the mouth, spending so much effort to try and intellectualise their dogma through figures like douglas murray.
Probably must've been explored by someone but if not you may have a good op-ed or article on your hands here, ey. May also cause many on the alt-right to start frothing at the mouth, spending so much effort to try and intellectualise their dogma through figures like douglas murray.
Last edited by Larssen (2020-09-21 11:04:22)
yes well, it was fairly apparent when people inspired by dawkins et al started to establish actual 'churches of atheism'. which, funnily enough, echoes another organization from revolutionary france, the cult of reason.
elevating anything to an absolute is bad juju. as i mentioned earlier, nietzsche critiqued this in the german academics of his time, ranke and so on, who were trying to make history and classicism an 'objective discipline'. all they were doing really was elevating a specific type of truth to an absolute value. the same thing obtains with scientific inquiry. people like dilbert, with their close adherence to a limited conception of 'truth' and 'reality', are basically just as dogmatic as any religious fundamentalist.
not to say that scientists and priests have an equal grasp on 'actual reality'. it's indisputable that science is the best means to describe the objective world. but some people turn scientific knowledge into something like an absolute view, and a religious creed, and banish anything that falls outside the purview of science into worthless nonsense, and so on ...
elevating anything to an absolute is bad juju. as i mentioned earlier, nietzsche critiqued this in the german academics of his time, ranke and so on, who were trying to make history and classicism an 'objective discipline'. all they were doing really was elevating a specific type of truth to an absolute value. the same thing obtains with scientific inquiry. people like dilbert, with their close adherence to a limited conception of 'truth' and 'reality', are basically just as dogmatic as any religious fundamentalist.
not to say that scientists and priests have an equal grasp on 'actual reality'. it's indisputable that science is the best means to describe the objective world. but some people turn scientific knowledge into something like an absolute view, and a religious creed, and banish anything that falls outside the purview of science into worthless nonsense, and so on ...
Last edited by uziq (2020-09-21 11:12:35)
why is it funny to you that there's a lot of racist bogans in australia?
there are old racists with unreconstructed opinions in japan, china and korea, too. people who similarly make remarks about 'foreigners' on public transport. amazing how this stuff is a trope amongst a certain type of person, likely born in a certain era, etc, isn't it?
apparently australian public transport is dangerous.
Sexual offences up by 60 per cent on public transport
https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict … 50tm6.html
https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict … 501qz.html
https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict … 4zy00.html
'There will be other victims: Police hunt man behind sexual assaults on trams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Aya_Maasarwe
and all those other women mentioned in the highlight, who were raped and murdered after getting on/off public transport? can you guess the ethnicity of the perpetrators of every single one? white australians.
once again:
GROW
THE
FUCK
UP.
there are old racists with unreconstructed opinions in japan, china and korea, too. people who similarly make remarks about 'foreigners' on public transport. amazing how this stuff is a trope amongst a certain type of person, likely born in a certain era, etc, isn't it?
apparently australian public transport is dangerous.
Sexual offences up by 60 per cent on public transport
https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict … 50tm6.html
'Lunged at her': Two schoolgirls violently attacked by same man in 'brazen' incidentsDays after the Productivity Commission reported that nearly a third of Victorians feel unsafe using public transport at night.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict … 501qz.html
Man performs lewd act in front of woman, assaults another on tramHe is described as Caucasian in appearance and about 40 to 50 years old and unshaven.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict … 4zy00.html
'There will be other victims: Police hunt man behind sexual assaults on trams
Police are hunting for the man who sexually assaulted three women on Melbourne trams over the past year and believe there could be more victims who haven't yet come forward.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Aya_Maasarwe
oh look, your favourite cause, the poor palestinians. why doesn't your heart bleed for this poor palestinian girl who was raped and murdered by an aussie bloke? you only seem to care when it's indians committing offences on trams, or when jews hurt palestinians.On 16 January 2019, Aya Maasarwe (alt: Aiia Maasarwe, Arabic: آية مصاروة Hebrew: איה מסארוה, [aˈja masaʁˈve]), a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who was studying at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia as an exchange student, was killed as she returned home from an evening at a comedy club in North Melbourne.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The violent, random nature of the killing sparked renewed community concern about the safety of women, especially after dark in Melbourne. Parallels were drawn to the murders of Eurydice Dixon, Jill Meagher and Maša Vukotić.
On 18 January, 20-year-old vagrant Codey Herrmann was arrested in Pioneer Reserve, a park in the nearby suburb of Greensborough.[13] The following day he was charged with Maasarwe's rape and murder.
and all those other women mentioned in the highlight, who were raped and murdered after getting on/off public transport? can you guess the ethnicity of the perpetrators of every single one? white australians.
once again:
GROW
THE
FUCK
UP.
Last edited by uziq (2020-09-23 02:18:38)
This is Codey Hermann
This guy is clearly a Lebo
Well done chap.
This guy is clearly a Lebo
Well done chap.
Fuck Israel
so two australian citizens in other words? are you trying to suggest that indians have a special problem with offences on trams with the above? really?
or white men have lower rates of sexual assault? really?
or white men have lower rates of sexual assault? really?
doesn't that describe half the population of australia? how many greeks are naturalized australians now, going back generations?Police said the man is of a southern European appearance and has a medium build with dark receding hair.
There is an ongoing problem with wogs, they may be citizens but several generations on they still live as if they're in a two-goat village in Sicily or Lebanon.
Fuck Israel
and the undeniably white or anglo-saxon perpetrators are just an anomaly? statistical aberrations?
wow u are wielding S C I E N C E.
dilbert: good on 19th century race science, eugenics, and outmoded essentialism, bad on facts.
what do you make of all the white serial killers, rapists, sex offenders, etc. to come from northern european countries? or america? if this is all a matter of inherent racial behaviour, that must damn you and me too, right?
wow u are wielding S C I E N C E.
dilbert: good on 19th century race science, eugenics, and outmoded essentialism, bad on facts.
what do you make of all the white serial killers, rapists, sex offenders, etc. to come from northern european countries? or america? if this is all a matter of inherent racial behaviour, that must damn you and me too, right?
Last edited by uziq (2020-09-23 03:11:55)
I don't know, white people can plan better?
Fuck Israel
oh right. i guess jimmy savile is to be commended because he can plan well. but those fucking wogs on trains, man! barely even human! animals!
No of course not, I'd cheerfully dismember them all alive, and I'm quite squeamish - just talking about brain surgery caused me to pass out once.
If Indians were smarter they'd be more prolific and harder to catch, as it is they get caught at the pawing at schoolgirls on buses stage.
If Indians were smarter they'd be more prolific and harder to catch, as it is they get caught at the pawing at schoolgirls on buses stage.
Fuck Israel
and the white guy above who was caught jacking off on a train in front of multiple women? what accounts for his most racially unusual lack of foresight?
Most likely mentally ill, we can stop them at the border but can't send them off if they were born here.
Fuck Israel
hahahaha. there we go! the 'mentally ill' line.
white mass shooters: mentally ill.
non-white mass shooters: terrorists, traitors, an existential threat to our civilization.
white sex offenders on public transport: mentally ill. perhaps stressed. was he upset? do we know about his family life?
non-white sex offenders on public transport: animals, disgusting, germs, unevolved simpletons.
white mass shooters: mentally ill.
non-white mass shooters: terrorists, traitors, an existential threat to our civilization.
white sex offenders on public transport: mentally ill. perhaps stressed. was he upset? do we know about his family life?
non-white sex offenders on public transport: animals, disgusting, germs, unevolved simpletons.
Its funny how what passes for mental illness in the west is normal behaviour in the subcontinent
I think we'll make a racist of you yet
I think we'll make a racist of you yet
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-09-23 04:24:16)
Fuck Israel
it isn't normal behaviour? who is calling it mental illness, anyway? only you. sexual assault in the west is understood as a conscious, culpable act. you can't plea the defence of insanity, dilbert.
So the officer has been charged over the bullets which DIDN'T hit Breonna Taylor?
It seems there's a bit more to it than we knew up to now.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat … 706161002/
Still, no-knock warrants don't really make sense unless someone is being held hostage.
It seems there's a bit more to it than we knew up to now.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat … 706161002/
Still, no-knock warrants don't really make sense unless someone is being held hostage.
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-09-24 01:45:52)
Fuck Israel
they had a no-knock warrant and didn’t identify themselves as police.
white people seem to be given a pretty wide lee-way to defend their homes in america. weren’t you talking in support of those two white attorneys who went out on their lawn and pointed assault rifles at a crowd of protestors?
but if somebody suddenly smashes down your door with a battering ram, unannounced, you’re supposed to sit still?
anyway, dating people with narcotics records is not an offence. nor is it punishable by summary execution.
white people seem to be given a pretty wide lee-way to defend their homes in america. weren’t you talking in support of those two white attorneys who went out on their lawn and pointed assault rifles at a crowd of protestors?
but if somebody suddenly smashes down your door with a battering ram, unannounced, you’re supposed to sit still?
anyway, dating people with narcotics records is not an offence. nor is it punishable by summary execution.
interview with co-founder of BLM.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 … ve-to-live
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 … ve-to-live
It’s a movement that some analysts say is the biggest in US history. Between 15 and 26 million people participated in demonstrations following the death of George Floyd in May this year – and between then and August there were 7,750 demonstrations in all 50 states and Washington DC. Internationally, there have been protests in 60 countries and on every continent except Antarctica, with politicians from Boris Johnson to Justin Trudeau insisting that they, too, think “Black Lives Matter”.
...
While Tometi insists she’s never anxious about wayward chapters, BLM’s structure does make it more difficult to dispel disinformation. Along with Garza and Cullors, she must repeatedly rebut the same attack lines, such as BLM being a Marxist organisation. “I would encourage people to think critically when they hear statements like this that aim to discredit BLM, because ultimately that’s what it is, right? There’s a lot of rightwing thinktanks and nativist organisations that are putting out a lot of fake information about us to distract, confuse and give people any excuse to not support this movement.”
And what about those who claim they are broadly aligned with BLM’s aims, but are put off by exaggerated reports of looting and violence? “I say look at the data. In 93% of the protests, nothing like that has happened. But beyond that I’ll be really honest: I’m not really concerned about broken glass. I’m concerned about people’s broken faces, their broken bodies, because they had the audacity to stand up for human rights. Property can be replaced, people cannot … I know it can be very confusing for people, but it really shouldn’t be.”
Moreover, in the vast majority of cases, she points out, protesters have been the victims of violence, not its perpetrators. “We have had police officers and military personnel come into our communities and brutalise us, for having the audacity to say our skin is not a crime. It’s scary out there. When you see a brigade of police officers knock over old men, you see them teargas us. You see them shoot people with rubber bullets and fracture their skulls. We’ve seen cars run through protesters, we’ve seen vigilantes come and kill people at these rallies. That to me is the focus; that’s the conversation we need to be having.”