Nick_A:
Simone Weil was …
This only emphasized the problem. I was not talking about Weil I was talking about you. Weil is not here and not making questionable and outright wrong claims about secularism.
There is no will of the people - just collective desire.
And this too illustrates the problem - your limited ability to comprehend what you read. Time and again I have pointed out how you have misunderstood the passages you cite. I am not going to repeat myself on the problem of the general will. It really is quite clear from the article. You do not have to agree with Weil on every issue but you should not misrepresent what she says so that you do not have to disagree with what you are claiming she says. Like I said,if you did not know that she was the author of the book being reviewed you would accuse her of secular intolerance.
From Dictionary.com …
[This only confirms my point. This definition is not the same as yours. It says nothing about secularism being a religion. It says nothing about Great Beasts or any of your other absurd accusations about secularism.
Your trouble is not that you don’t know what secularism is but rather that you don’t know what sacred means. You consider secularized interpretations of the sacred to be sacred when they are actually secular. You have yet to psychologically distinguish between the secular and the sacred.
I see you have ignored my friendly advice. Do not presume to tell me what I do not know, what I consider, and what I have yet to distinguish without any evidence to support your claims. I have not discussed the sacred or “secularized interpretations” which is code for interpretations you do not agree with. Since you do not cite even one example of a secularized interpretation that I have commented on, this is just more wild and reckless accusations.
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
This may have been the reality at the time this was written but Christians are no longer persecuted in the West. The problem is not that you are a Christian and those you oppose you are not, nor is it that you are a “true Christian” and Christians who oppose you are not. The problem is that you have a skewed view of people, government, education, and whatever else you rant about. And this is why I said that if Jesus or God or Simone Weil were to say something you did not agree with you would say it was secular intolerance.
If you refuse to open to the division between the secular and the sacred, you will always exhibit secular intolerance.
That is complete nonsense. First of all, what you call the sacred is your version of the sacred and so any statements about the sacred that you do not accept you will dismiss as secularized, no matter what the source. Second, if someone rejects the division between a world of Forms or "objective consciousness" and the world of ordinary experience that does not make them intolerant. Third, a careful (which you mistake for secular) reading of Plato reveals many hints as to why his salutary public teaching is just that, a salutary public teaching, not the revelation of the Forms or higher truths or the world of the sacred. Fourth, there are those who do embrace the sacred but not Platonic Forms. But of course you will dismiss this as secularized corruption of the sacred. All of this points to the fact that the problem is not secular intolerance but your own intolerance of anyone or anything that is at odds with your imagined truths. They are, as I say below, imagined because they are not based on anything you actually know and not supported by evidence of any kind. That others who you believe do know have spoken about such things only means that you imagine what it is that they are talking about but you cannot know by their talking about it.
You call recognizing this essential division “attacking secularists”
No, I call what you say when you are attacking secularists as attacking secularists. I call your nonsense about Forms and higher realms nonsense because you have no knowledge of what you speak. You may believe that we have the potential to transcend the cave, but unless you have actually done so you know nothing of what you speak. I cannot speak for everyone but I am not intolerant of your efforts to do so, but until you have done so you are just talking about what you imagine and faulting us for not agreeing.
You don’t understand the passage from Matthew because you’ve secularized it.
I may not understand the passage but if so then show me by textual analysis what it really means and how my understanding of it is incompatible with what is said. You may dismiss adherence to the text as secularizing it, you may believe you have a magic decoder ring that gives you access to a higher esoteric meaning, but again there is a difference between where you stand and what you believe is possible. In other words, believing there is an esoteric level does not mean you have attained the ability to read at that level. You give what is a sacred practice a bad name by attempting to defend yourself by citing Bible passages. Someone who is a true practitioner would say you defiled it.
You don’t understand the passage from Matthew because you’ve secularized it.The question is if our allegiance is to attachments to the world or to the conscious potential for rebirth.
This is funny. You miss the irony. You have secularized it. You have made it about the difference between attachments to secular concerns versus rebirth.
There was at the time both Jewish and Gentile asceticism and so even if one understands Jesus to be teaching detachment from worldly things that is not sufficient for explain why a man would turn against his father or a daughter against her mother or make enemies of members of one’s own household. Rebirth through Christ is not simply about the difference between allegiance to things of this world and allegiance to Christ. You may think that an awareness of the historical situation is secularizing the sacred, but knowledge of the historical situation shows that for many what was at issue in the passage from Matthew is about competing sacred demands and claims of sacred authority.
As for textual support:
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.(Matthew 10:5-6)
This points to the schism between Paul and the Apostles. It was Paul who was sent to preach to the Gentiles because his claims about the Law were intolerable. It was not simply a matter of the “lost sheep of Israel” turning to worldly things but a) differences with regard to the Law, which in the Gospels takes two forms - Jesus objections to the interpretation and practice of Law and Paul's claim that the Law is not binding to those who are not Jews,and b) not acknowledging him as the messiah. To that extent, it was clearly a matter of the sacred not the secular. With so many false messiahs running around it is no wonder that many were not convinced Jesus was the messiah. Their adherence to the Law was a sacred not a secular matter. Their refusal to follow a false messiah was a sacred not a secular matter.
As to your own internet crusade to vanquish the Great Beast and save the world, your citing of the passage from Matthew in order to defend yourself misses the mark:
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. (10:14)
As to intolerance:
Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues.(10-17)
No one here is turning you over to the local authorities to be flogged (although some might not object).You may fancy yourself a crusader and persecuted martyr but that is a fantasy of your own making. Others have suggested hatred as a motive but I think we should not overlook resentment and pathological need for love, attention, and affirmation. Secular sensibilities may have you protesting that this is a personal attack, but the philosophy of Plato makes it clear the various ways in which the personal is fundamental to philosophy. Socrates in his role as physician of the soul could have been of great benefit to you, but you would have dismissed him for secular intolerance and instead of looking at yourself you would look beyond, or rather away from yourself, to Weil and an imagined other world.