Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

Now, now, Harbal...no need to get all huffy. I'm totally fine with it. I just don't see the cause for it, and absent that, can't feel it's much of a worry.

You know what I'm like, IC, I will insist on being me.

Wouldn't have you any other way.

[tillingborn]

1. If it is only your fear of God that prevents you from doing terrible things, you confess to being a dangerous lunatic that needs to be controlled.
2. If you are not a dangerous lunatic, you admit that your sense of morality is independent of God.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

ALL moral arguments are appeals to authority or revelation.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

[tillingborn]

When I challenged this:

What was Biden doing in Ukraine?

You posted this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydSf57SRtcQ

It doesn't mention Biden. You really do have to be a conspiracy nut to think it makes your case.
And when I asked you this:

What common knowledge is there regarding Biden's provocation of the invasion of Crimea by Russia in 2014?

You posted this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqE7UTptgGg

Again, Biden isn't mentioned. As of yet, you have not shown that Biden provoked the biggest land war in Europe since 1945. I think you will struggle to do so, but I am certain you would rather that than admit his role was negligible, and that you are talking nonsense.

[Immanuel Can]

Biden isn't mentioned...

Small matter. His appointee. Unless you think she went rogue, and the labs were there without his knowledge, it makes no difference.

You're trying too hard, Tillie. It's making you look manic.

[Skepdick]

1. If it is only your fear of God that prevents you from doing terrible things, you confess to being a dangerous lunatic that needs to be controlled.
2. If you are not a dangerous lunatic, you admit that your sense of morality is independent of God.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

ALL moral arguments are appeals to authority or revelation.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

You dumb, dismissive, uncharitable sophist! Why are you misinterpreting the meaning of my "OR? It's parametric function, not a dichotomous logical connective!

So whether you appeal to a Moral authority; OR you appeal to Moral revelation; OR you appeal to God; OR you appeal to your Moral intuition; OR you appeal to the moral virtues of your pet doplhin; OR you appeal to <whatever> (ad infinitum).

They are functionally identical appeals. No matter your premises your moral conclusion is the same!

Hurry up to 2023! We are waiting for your dumb ass to catch up.

[tillingborn]

Biden isn't mentioned...

Small matter. His appointee. Unless you think she went rogue, and the labs were there without his knowledge, it makes no difference.

You're trying too hard, Tillie. It's making you look manic.

That is you projecting again. The evidence that Biden is responsible for Russia's behaviour is so thin, you really are struggling to make a case.

[Skepdick]

That is you projecting again. The evidence that Biden is responsible for Russia's behaviour is so thin, you really are struggling to make a case.

Thin evidence and sufficient evidence are different things.

Surely you know this? It's 2023.

IC has lowered the bar for sufficiency even lower than his intelligence - you are trying to lift it higher than he can jump.

It's all the same nonsense.

[tillingborn]

1. If it is only your fear of God that prevents you from doing terrible things, you confess to being a dangerous lunatic that needs to be controlled.
2. If you are not a dangerous lunatic, you admit that your sense of morality is independent of God.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

ALL moral arguments are appeals to authority or revelation.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

Immanuel Can is appealing to God. You are quite right that functionally his behaviour does not depend on the existence of God.

You dumb, dismissive, uncharitable sophist! Why are you misinterpreting the meaning of my "OR? It's parametric function, not a dichotomous logical connective!

Tell that to Immanuel Can.

[Skepdick]

Immanuel Can is appealing to God. You are quite right that functionally his behaviour does not depend on the existence of God.

That's only half the story. Functionally your behaviour doesn't depend on the non-existence of God either.

The fact is you have absolutely no idea what your behaviour depends on - so it's pointless to nitpick the appeal.

Tell that to Immanuel Can.

I told it to the person who made the error.

[tillingborn]

I told it to the person who made the error.

I said it before; I have no interest in a dialogue with another halfwit who presumes to tell me what I think.

[Skepdick]

I told it to the person who made the error.

I said it before; I have no interest in a dialogue with another halfwit who presumes to tell me what I think.

Good! Because I am not a halfwit.

I am a fullwit pointing out to the halfwit that he made an error.

You misinterpreted what I meant by "OR" and you falsely concluded a dichotomy.

So if you aren't willing to self-correct your misinterpretation and misunderstanding of other people's words when your error is pointed out to you then you should probably let other people know this before you waste their time in "dialogue".

Nobody wants to talk to a halfwit who deliberately misunderstand what is being said.

[Belinda]

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

ALL moral arguments are appeals to authority or revelation.

It's 2023 dude. This dichotomous thinking is so lame.

You dumb, dismissive, uncharitable sophist! Why are you misinterpreting the meaning of my "OR? It's parametric function, not a dichotomous logical connective!

So whether you appeal to a Moral authority; OR you appeal to Moral revelation; OR you appeal to God; OR you appeal to your Moral intuition; OR you appeal to the moral virtues of your pet doplhin; OR you appeal to <whatever> (ad infinitum).

They are functionally identical appeals. No matter your premises your moral conclusion is the same!

Hurry up to 2023! We are waiting for your dumb ass to catch up.

As a pantheist I agree with Skepdick. God and nature are the same. Nature dictates which ideas work and which fail. The parameters are extents to which an idea or practice does or does not comply with nature.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Do you not find the fact that it was possible for a narcissistic moron like Donald Trump to become president of the USA alarming?

Given that my position and objective is one of observation and understanding about the present, though I do admit to being ideologically opposed to (what I understand to be) the transformation of America (technically my country) into a nation-state of a very different sort than the original version, I take a somewhat different tack when examining the phenomenon of Donald Trump.

Years back now, as DT was running but not yet elected, I followed a blog by an interesting man with legal and political background in Washington and whose area of interest at Harvard had been the American Presidency. He was adamantly opposed to Donald Trump for a group of reasons given that he is brusque, loud-mouthed, uncouth, vulgar, hot-headed and in a certain ethical and moral sense degenerate. But he saw DT in the context of a general decline in American culture which, I think, anyone observing should clearly see and take note of.

I think it true that when contemplating a man like DT that, as with some many things in our present, one assembles interpretive tools to make sense of him. Some are merely handed to one -- i.e. all the sort of noisy opinions that one receives through media-systems -- and which one adopts rather stupidly.

For example your term 'narcissist' is one such term because it really doesn't provide any interpretative help. I followed closely over the years the NYTs interpretive dirty-work on DT and it may interest you to know that at one point a prominent journalist declared that given the danger presented by DT it had become necessary for him as a journalist to stop engaging journalistically and to take a directly opposing angle in his reporting. That is not to report 'the truth' but to present doctored negative outlooks that would act to inhibit DT's election and his success as an American President. He stated this in an editorial that appeared on the front page and I thought this extraordinary. And, rather quickly, the NYTs morphed from being 'the periodical of record' to being a Maoist-like 'struggle-session' indoctrination-vehicle for a class of person inclined in Progressive-Egalitarian and also sexual-deviancy directions.

You will notice of course that I am making harsh judgments with these statements and revealing a 'conservative' stance. One of the key 'tells' about a civilizational decline (according to some serious historians) is how sexual mores show up at key points as part of a general decline in ethics and moral standards. In my view sexual deviancy is like a mental and psychological disease. And also in my view this 'disease' is spreading like wildfire. And it is my position that that, what I am describing, needs to be seen in a far larger context of social breakdown and certainly also in the economic sphere.

So, doubling back to what I said about the emergence of a New Version of America and one very different from the Original Version, I see this as an economic model which people tend to describe as 'globalist' without really defining what that means. And I have also said that this globalism must be seen as largely an American creation, a construction, an imposed economic and cultural model built after America's victory after WW2. It was then that American planners divided the world into 'regions' to be administered through a cultural and economic model uniquely American.

And there is where Homo americanus is to be seen. This is really an anthropological type. It involves a new, universalist definition of Man as a world-being, and it defines the Earth as a place where this universalist economic and social model is to be imposed. And this imposition is presented through a type of psychology in which American manifest destiny is presented, which is to say imposed, on the world and presented as inherently 'moral' and 'good' but also inevitable and necessary. It is presented as an evolutionary model for humanity. Humankind's next step. The right way to see, think and live.

In my view the behind-the-scenes power-struggles that are referred to as obscure machinations of the (American) Deep State need to be seen through this lens. Or, it is helpful to see these deep systemic struggles in this way. I wish I understood it all better but I cannot say that I do. But from what I can piece together we are actually in a time of war, a war has begun, and it is geo-political, it is ideological, but moreover it is economic. The question seems to be: whose model will dominate 'the world market'? And what will be it civil terms? Will it be a model like China's? Or will it be one like America's?

And yet it is important to state (or I think so anyway) that both models show similar patterns. Or ideological connections. The model that is being imposed right now by the regime we refer to as run by 'Democrats' (a catch-word for a collusion between the private sector and the public-governmental machinery) is necessarily authoritarian in the sense that no opposition to it will be or can be allowed. Anyone opposing it, or opposing those elements of its anthropology, must be weakened and destroyed. It is fair to say that behind this *imposition* are extremely consequential and powerful forces that must have their way with the American mind. It is an extension propaganda-model of 'winning hearts & minds'.

So with a bit of background -- and no one on this entire forum seems to have much background at all nor to be much interested to have such -- it is now possible to examine the phenomenon of Donald Trump. What other lens might we use to understand his appearance and rise? Certainly that of the Demagogue but also I think CG Jung's view that the manifestation of huge cultural figures can be examined through a psychological lens. Jung did write interesting essays about Hitler in the aftermath of his rise and fall. I have even provided links to those essays months back. I am not saying that Trump is a Hitlerian figure, I certainly do not think he is. But I think it wise to examine him as a 'social phenomenon' -- a man who 'arose' within a social context of the beginning of breakdown in social cohesion -- and a man who seems to represent a significant portion of a cultural demographic of the 'former America' I spoke of. You could say the 'white demographic' of an America in a process of being reengineered into a sort of cog within a larger global machine. This is one reason why I bring up the concern of 'race' and 'ethnicity' in the context of America and Europe.

I recognize that you-plural have integrated into your very selves that it is *immoral* to see race and ethnicity and if ever you did see things in such a way there is an Editor who quickly suppresses the thought itself. This, to me, shows how extraordinarily powerful are those public relations and propaganda techniques alluded to. You have been 'engineered' to be that 'global man' and that 'global citizen' in a huge construct. You will turn against yourselves at the most fundamental level so to be able to see yourselves as 'good'.

(I know that all of this goes completely over your head Harbal but you know that I am not really writing this to you but rather using you as a springboard.)

This reengineering process has about 100 year history, even a bit more now, and some part of its origin can be traced back to the First World War and the emergence of extremely powerful public relations and propaganda science of social manipulation. I would draw to your attention that consequential ideological battles went on at that time (in the Teens) in which a national establishment determined it necessary to create a 'machinery' to get people on-board with America's entry to the European War. That 'machinery' needs to be seen and better understood if one actually wishes to come up with coherent interpretations of what is going on now in the present.

All of this preamble (I know, it is all useless given the low-level of interest and capability often shown here) is to present a situation over which, at least I do not think so, any one of us has much power at all. We are simply *along for the ride* and are carried in a current of powerful events which we have limited influence over.

Finally, it occurs to me that we must now begin to recapitulate and review what this entire thread has been about. The loss of a national religious identity -- here I speak sociologically and not as a Christian partisan -- is the beginning of the suicide some theorists like Pat Buchanan and Douglas Murray have written about.

Murray's book:

The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth rates, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive alteration as a society and an eventual end.

This is not just an analysis of demographic and political realities; it is also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes accounts based on travels across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who pretend they want them to the places which cannot accept them.

Murray takes a step back at each stage and looks at the bigger and deeper issues which lie behind a continent's possible demise, from an atmosphere of mass terror attacks to the steady erosion of our freedoms. The audiobook addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation, and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa, and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away.

This sharp and incisive audiobook ends up with two visions for a new Europe - one hopeful, one pessimistic - which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next. But perhaps Spengler was right: 'civilizations, like humans, are born, briefly flourish, decay, and die'.

Buchanan's:

America is disintegrating. The "one Nation under God, indivisible" of the Pledge of Allegiance is passing away. In a few decades, that America will be gone forever. In its place will arise a country unrecognizable to our parents. This is the thrust of Pat Buchanan's Suicide of a Superpower, his most controversial and thought-provoking book to date.

Buchanan traces the disintegration to three historic changes: America's loss of her cradle faith, Christianity; the moral, social, and cultural collapse that have followed from that loss; and the slow death of the people who created and ruled the nation. And as our nation disintegrates, our government is failing in its fundamental duties, unable to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars.

How Americans are killing the country they profess to love, and the fate that awaits us if we do not turn around, is what Suicide of a Superpower is all about.

And remember Bowden's prescient declarations. What has interested me is to observe the reactions that Bowden gets from people, as on this forum, who evince fundamental indoctrination. I am amazed how the 'internal editor' rises up to nip in the bud any self-affirming thought.

Think of me, Alexis Jacobi, as a sort of psychopomp on a very very difficult ideological journey!

Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the 'guide of souls') are supernatural creatures, spirits, entities, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to guide them. Appearing frequently on funerary art, psychopomps have been depicted at different times and in different cultures as anthropomorphic entities, horses, deer, dogs, whip-poor-wills, ravens, crows, vultures, owls, sparrows, and cuckoos. In the case of birds, these are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying.

[tillingborn]

...I am not a halfwit.

If you don't appreciate that each OR you mention is an appeal to authority or revelation, yes you are.

[Harbal]

(I know that all of this goes completely over your head Harbal but you know that I am not really writing this to you but rather using you as a springboard.)

Yes, of course, that goes without saying.

You will notice of course that I am making harsh judgments with these statements and revealing a 'conservative' stance. One of the key 'tells' about a civilizational decline (according to some serious historians) is how sexual mores show up at key points as part of a general decline in ethics and moral standards. In my view sexual deviancy is like a mental and psychological disease. And also in my view this 'disease' is spreading like wildfire. And it is my position that that, what I am describing, needs to be seen in a far larger context of social breakdown and certainly also in the economic sphere.

I am interested in what you would include under the heading of "sexual deviancy", and why you think it matters.