06-11-2008, 11:37 AM | #661 | |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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You do not need cathedrals, and cardinals. Take the path up to a cliff nearby, a place with a view, and watch the forests or the fields or the skies or the cities or the seas or the oceans. The place where you stand is your temple, your church, your place of worship. Care to witness a miracle? Visit your favorite place(!) and stand there in silence and view the beauty. Without the holy processions of the church, the goldcoloured cloths or the sound of the organ. Worship the message, not the creeds.
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." Last edited by Coffeehouse : 06-11-2008 at 11:38 AM. |
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06-11-2008, 01:49 PM | #662 | ||||||||||||||
Elf Lord
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I'm glad it is .
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Also, you actually disbelieve the senses on many occasions. All kinds of people have had visions or seen miracles. I've talked with people who have seen ouija boards levitate into the air all on their own, or have seen people with disabilities have limbs grow longer or shorter in answer to prayers, etc. etc. Miracles and visions are a part of the experience of humanity throughout time, and they are part of the experience of the senses. Your claim that these fairy beings never do anything constructive is also based purely on conjecture, as you don't have any idea to what extent they have influenced "natural" events. Quote:
Many people don't believe in God because they find the idea comforting but because they interactively experience a powerful, awe-striking Lover in their lives. Quote:
Not all NDE accounts parallel Christian theology perfectly. Some people have come back believing in reincarnation, and describing being met by Buddha or Muhammad. However, some people describe their experience having started out with brilliant light but then having turned into a hellish experience afterward, so it is perfectly possible that those influenced by these eroneous beliefs could have ended up in a hell-like experience if they'd had an opportunity to "go further." Anyway, there is a good deal of evidence of life after death. There are NDE's, but there also are loads of spiritual experiences the living have which provide evidence supporting life after death. Quote:
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There's more than one way to find great appreciation in the smallness of that "chance" . Quote:
If we listen. Quote:
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This is the story of Israel throughout the Old Testament. They start to do well, then they get corrupt and idolatrous, so God punishes them, so they repent, so they are forgiven and blessed again, so they go back to being idolatrous, so God punishes them again, and so on. Quote:
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The answer to this is simple. Jesus said, "Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you." Seek God and tell him you'll devote your life to him if he reveals himself to you, and seek God persistently, and he will reveal himself to you in a way that makes sense to your reason and fills your heart with a fountain of new love and joy. Quote:
I know . . . and license to pervert oneself and harm others like nothing else. For if no one is going to last anyway and no one has any intrinsic value beyond that of another animal, why not just speed up the process for someone if he's bothering me? This perspective can create hideously self-centered behavior in some people. There is no certainty that there will be a Final Judgment, so there is license for destructive acts.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-11-2008, 03:27 PM | #663 | ||||||||||||
Elf Lord
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China's big economic downturn in the 19th century occurred after its leaders had been offered Christian teaching for a few hundred years already, and had consistently rejected it. Then the Europeans clobbered the country (Enlightenment imperialism), and they became viciously anti-Christian. During that anti-Christian period, some of their worst atrocities occurred and many of their biggest wars, the nightmares of the 20th century. Now, Christianity is making big strides in the country, though it still has to operate largely underground because of the risk of persecution. The economic expansion of China is occurring simultaneously. All this is pretty interesting from a spiritual perspective, for historically, the rejection of God's Word correlates China's disasters and the acceptance of it correlates with its greater prosperity and success. Prior to the coming of Christianity to China, I think God was very merciful to them in spite of the wickedness of many accepted customs and practices, because of their ignorance. Quote:
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And that God's Word, if it is God's Word, is the highest word is only logical and good. Quote:
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Also, I'll add that the abundance of people's wealth doesn't determine their happiness at all. I've met impoverished Christian families in Mexico whose lives are overflowing with joy, and some of the people that I've met who are most in pain are overflowing with the most love. Happiness comes from the love of God and the experience of his love for us. Economic factors are definitely secondary. In fact, economic hardship can sometimes bring people more strongly toward God, which can increase the joy of many rather than decreasing it. Quote:
1) Slavery. In order to build a successful modern economy, the development of Mercantilism and the TransAtlantic Slave Trade were necessary. Slavery had existed sporadically throughout the Medieval Ages, in the form of the enslavement of prisoners of war (they were trying to destroy our nation, so why shouldn't they be made to build it up as penalty?) or the temporary enslavement of workers who couldn't pay their debts, until they could settle. Most workers had a contract with their lords during the Medieval Ages, which involved each gaining some profit. The common serfs or vassals could expect a steady supply of food and protection, as well as homes and land, from their lord. They, in turn, spent half of their time working on their own property and half working on their lord's fields, they paid his taxes and did odd-jobs for him. There was mutual benefit in the contract. This kind of labor system broke down a lot with the Black Death, because fewer workers existed in the pool, so they were able to demand higher wages. Because normal laborers toward the end of the Medieval Ages demanded more income, people in charge felt the need to move to cheaper sources of income. To develop a modern economy, the nations of the Enlightenment felt the need for slavery as never before. Previously, slavery had only been seen as justified in cases where the person was born into slavery (if they don't pay the debt they owe their master for providing for them throughout their youth, masters have no incentive to look after them and the children would have to be separated from parents, living in dependency on the Church or charities, or dying in the streets), prisoners of war and temporary enslavement of debtors. The Enlightenment changed all that. They needed to justify mass-enslavement and mass-exploitation to fuel their economies, so they advanced and justified racism enormously at that time, a view that contradicted the views of the Church, as it had had ministers and congregations in Africa since the very first centuries of Christianity's existence, and they hadn't had a racist mentality. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, justified by racism as well as some reinterpretation of Christianity (This was post-Protestant Reformation now, remember, so Tradition doesn't matter), played a crucial role in the development of our economies into the form they are now. Millions of African and Native American slaves paid the brutal price for the greed the development of our system was originally based on. 2) Colonialism. This and point 3, as well as point 1, are all closely linked. To develop a modern economy, the industrial giants needed raw resources. The Industrial Revolution had swiftly stripped Europe bare. So they created colonies that often brutalized and enslaved native populations, justifying their conduct on racist principles, in order to produce the modern resources the West needed to fuel its modern economy. 3) Imperialism. To secure strategic economic points, the European nations began swiftly competing with one another to get as much as they could of the rest of the world. These three, Imperialism, Colonialism and Slavery built the new economy of Europe on an ocean of blood of millions of innocent people. Imperialism and colonialism did not exist in Medieval Europe. There were battles between different nations over territory, especially in the Late Medieval Ages, but there was nothing like the imperialism of the new era. Post-imperialism nations today are still fighting wars with one another in many parts of the globe, and even genocides have resulted from European powers clamping together tribes or nations that had no historical commonalities between them. Colonialism did not exist in the Medieval Ages. Slavery was a much rarer practice and was more rational and more just. Christian masters also felt more responsibility for their slaves in that time, because of protective laws established by the Emperor in the East and promoted by the Church in the West. The Enlightenment built a new economy through savagery. It was indeed an escape from Christian morality in many senses. But there were other devastating methods used to develop this economy that I haven't mentioned yet. 4) The expansion of inequalities and ruthless exploitation of the common worker. In the Medieval Ages, there was a social contract between lords and their workers that provided their workers with a generally pretty good life. In fact, throughout most of the Medieval Ages, the average worker was about as tall as Westerners of the 21st century are. That is an indication of good economic conditions, a healthy diet, etc. They began to get shorter in the Late Medieval Ages because the Little Ice Age devastated a lot of harvests, but economic conditions for the average worker became the worst they'd ever been during the Enlightenment. The skeletons of average workers from that time period are shorter than they'd ever been before in post-Christian Western history, because workers were so brutally treated in factories, were starved and given squalor to live in. Owners had no compassion for them in the capitalist free market. This is a useful article showing the transition from economic conditions in the Medieval Ages to economic conditions of the Enlightenment: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/medimen.htm According to the author, skeletal height also is sensitive to inequalities in populations, and inequalities between the rich and poor actually became far greater in the modern era than they'd been in the Medieval Ages, because of the inhumanity and lack of social, moral responsibility felt by big businesses. To achieve our great economies of today, the common worker for centuries was ground into the filth under an iron foot. It was a very, very savage time in the Enlightenment to be a worker, more so than at any other time in Western history. And inequalities between the rich and poor are actually still much greater in our modern societies than they were in the Medieval Ages- it's just that now in the West, because the brutal practices of the past produced so much more money to go around, both the rich and the poor are monetarily better off than they were in the past. 5) The destruction of the environment. This could have the longest lasting and most cataclysmic impact of all, on humanity. The Bible calls us to be good stewards of creation. However, to develop our modern economy, humans in the Enlightenment destroyed many of the world's ecosystems and most of its natural environment. http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/jo...cal_Crisis.htm According to this source, “the fact that the present ecological crisis began developing since the Industrial Revolution is indisputable now.” There was always cutting down of trees to build buildings or crafts before the modern era, but the Industrial Revolution stepped up the process in a vast way through its factory system. They essentially perpetrated an environmental holocaust in their production of our modern benefits, destroying hundreds of species, ruining the air, forests and seas. We have continued in their footsteps in our age, and this kind of environmental rape is necessary to produce a modern economy of the kind we've got. The environmental catastrophe our economic development required could literally end up wiping out the human race, in a few hundred years. So don't be proud of this economic development. The shrugging off of Christian moral safeguards on society was nightmarish in its consequences for hundreds of millions of people in the past, for many people fighting wars in formerly colonized nations of the present, and it could easily be for all humanity in the future. Quote:
Some of these thinkers advanced Social Darwinism, which spawned Imperialism. Others supported Racism or Eugenics. The new political philosophies were perverted as well. Atheistic Communism has become responsible for repeated genocides, as have democracies (the destruction of Native Americans, and now abortion). There were no Christian genocides in the Medieval Ages, and there were no major rebellions in the Early and Middle Medieval Ages- only a few local rebellions against lords. The modern era is born on rebellion and replete with genocides. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-11-2008 at 04:09 PM. |
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06-11-2008, 03:55 PM | #664 | |||||
Elf Lord
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And the methods by which our modern economies were developed were heinous at best. That these greedy and ruthless techniques came at the end of the Christian era is not surprising. I describe them in more depth in my post above . . . my longest yet in this thread, in all probability . Quote:
*Gets thoughtful.* Maybe I should do it less thoroughly. Quote:
It was one Church, one belief, teaching the same doctrines that (if you read the writings of the Early Church Fathers) Christians believed from the very beginnings of our faith. The pope's office and authority on matters of doctrine helps to ensure that this unity around the original teachings remains intact. When the Protestant Reformation began, there were only a handful of denominations. Now, Protestantism includes tens of thousands of denominations because the split is fragmenting more and more and more. Without any authority at the top, people often interpret the Bible the way they want and Christianity's message becomes less and less coherent and more and more contradictory. So I think that this office is a very important and valuable one. Quote:
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I like your points .
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-11-2008 at 04:02 PM. |
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06-11-2008, 04:05 PM | #665 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-11-2008, 04:11 PM | #666 |
the Shrike
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On near death experience & spirituality, you may want to read Persinger (Your brain on God), or anything of that ilk.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
06-11-2008, 04:33 PM | #667 | |
Elf Lord
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On the other hand: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/vmary.htm
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-11-2008, 04:49 PM | #668 |
the Shrike
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"or anything of that ilk". Sheesh.
From my link: Persinger goes one step further. His work practically constitutes a Grand Unified Theory of the Otherworldly: He believes cerebral fritzing is responsible for almost anything one might describe as paranormal - aliens, heavenly apparitions, past-life sensations, near-death experiences, awareness of the soul, you name it.
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords Last edited by BeardofPants : 06-11-2008 at 04:50 PM. |
06-11-2008, 04:50 PM | #669 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
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It's alright, dear. We understood what you meant. Even if you did use 'ilk'.
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06-11-2008, 04:58 PM | #670 | |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Lief, you write so long! But I will read it and answer you since you spent so many words
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." |
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06-11-2008, 05:22 PM | #671 |
Elf Lord
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Thanks . . . it's because you ask such massive questions!!! Really, the questions you ask are huge, things requiring explanation, not little things I can pop off one-liners to. So I'm taking a lot of time.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
06-11-2008, 05:49 PM | #672 |
The Ñoldóran
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Hmm, while this is an interesting discussion, I suppose I'm in a sort of 'middle-ground' between you two. I am not an atheist, but neither am I a devout Christian (of any sort). So I thought I'd just throw in some observations - take it as you will.
It seems to me that both of you are basing your beliefs on faith. Here's what I see: - Coffeehouse - you are indeed using 'faith' as Lief said - science, while based on emperical evidence and observation, cannot always be observed by the senses, so your claim that you believe only what you can see or feel is not purely correct. Lief - you have already stated that faith is important to your beliefs, so I don't need to elaborate there. I think the most important thing for both sides to see is that we don't know everything. Whether from a Christian perspective or a scientific perspective, there is so much in this world (or universe) that we simply don't understand, and to completely discount the beliefs of the other (as Coffeehouse in particular seems to be doing) is a dangerous thing. Science thrives on being open minded, and I think that as human beings with imperfect minds in an amazingly complex world that Christians and atheists alike should keep an open mind. Christians - you believe you have the word of God in the bible, and who knows, I'm not going to say that it isn't true beause I don't know. But do you truly believe that the human mind is advanced enough to truly understand all the nuances and connotations of the words of God? The Mind of God is so far above us that we could appear as children reading 'Animal Farm' and seeing it as a cute little barnyard story while completely missing the greater meaning. Atheists: Not to believe in God requires just as much of a leap of faith as does believing in God. While there may be no empirical evidence that God does exist, there is also no empirical evidence that he does not exist. Why not simply answer this question with an open-minded 'I don't know' instead of labling a good portion of the world's population as foolish? Wow, that's really rambling. Ah well.
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Then Celegorm no more would stay, And Curufin smiled and turned away... ~The Lay of Leithian |
06-11-2008, 06:33 PM | #673 | |||||
Elf Lord
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Cool post, Curufin .
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Before rejecting any belief, I need to have a very good reason for doing so, whether logical or evidence-based. The world is also indeed extremely complex, and there is a great deal to know, both about science and about God, that we don't yet. The Bible actually says this explicitly in the Epistles . Paul wrote, "Now we see through a mirror, darkly, but soon we will see face to face. Now I know only partially; but then I shall know fully, as I am fully known." Quote:
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http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/vmary.htm It was nice . Well said!
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-11-2008, 06:43 PM | #674 | |
Princess of the Noldor (and Administrative Empress of the Lone Islands)
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He ponders all the things he wants to give thanks for, like his ability to see the world, and I think he would have agreed with you about the beauty and the simpleness and the uniqueness. I don't know whether he regarded himself an atheist or an agnostic, but he seems to feel a certain sadness that he hasn't got anyone to give thanks to. He asks the giver, "Who are you? Why do you keep quiet?" ("Kven er du gjevar? Kvi teier du still?") And he ends up by giving thanks to someone whom I interpret to be the woman that he loves.
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Signature picture art - Bard the Bowman - by vigshane Avatar art - Footsteps of Spring (a young Luthien) - by Henning Janssen |
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06-11-2008, 06:51 PM | #675 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-11-2008 at 06:56 PM. |
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06-11-2008, 06:53 PM | #676 | ||
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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There were also the Nestorians, a while before the Copts. There were also some other groups that died out. Technically, the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are heretical. Even if the Orientals don't really seem to adhere today to the Christological heresies which confused terminology imputed to them, and even if most Orthodox today are willing to accept some understanding of the Filioque, these bodies still reject, practically as a homogeneous whole (and the few exceptions are obviously just confused ), the doctrine of Papal infallibility. The rejection of this one defined dogma is enough to render someone technically a heretic. As regards "sister churches", I suppose you could say that believing nearly all the same things is an indirect cause of it. Most directly, though, it's because we recognize their orders as valid (as opposed to, say, Episcopalians). Quote:
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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06-11-2008, 07:01 PM | #677 | ||||
Elf Lord
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Indeed, I read the affirmations of this from Clement of Rome, Iranaeus and others, as well as the Biblical evidence supporting it, and it is all very neat. I already went through it all more than once, both when I was coming to Catholicism in the first place and a couple weeks or so ago, when I was debating with an Orthodox Christian on the Catholic Answers site. I just didn't want to give Nautipus an exhaustive reply . At least not at that point- I might have mentioned the other things later.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-11-2008 at 07:03 PM. |
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06-11-2008, 07:07 PM | #678 | ||||
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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06-11-2008, 07:09 PM | #679 | |||
Elf Lord
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Y'know, Gwaimir, when I saw you enter Catholicism, I really never thought that one day I'd be following you.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-11-2008 at 07:11 PM. |
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06-11-2008, 07:15 PM | #680 | |||||||
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Lief, you discuss many things.
The senses. Near Death Experiences. Morality. China. Slavery, Colonialism and Imperialism. The downturns of economic development. While it shows an okay display of knowledge of the general timeline of world history, the analysis is contradictory and incomplete. And sometimes, it seems completely made up as you go along. We'll just have to agree that we disagree completely in our worldview. Quote:
Eyes - Evidence - Evaluation - Experience - Enlightenment. Quote:
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From the passage above to the passage below there was nothing but talk of God and the ways of God. Things I can't respond to without simply calling it made-up. Which would be rude of me But I don't find it at all convincing. Quote:
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The reason that China experienced a colossal turn of events for the worse in the 19th century was because the nations of Europe violently imposed trade agreements and, from the mid-19th century and into the 20th century, along with Japan, broke down the intricate relationship China had with all its neighbours. The era of the Sinocentric Tributary System was replaced by an era of Treaties and Western economics an statehood. China is the oldest country in the world. It is the most successful civilization over the last 4,000 years, and it is not Christian. It is also the least imperialist nation in the entire world history of great powers. It was through trade relations and non-interference, not violence, that China became the economic powerhouse of Asia. And it is happening again, today, only interrupted by a 150 year period where the nations of Europe, the USA, and Japan, colonialized, fought, took, and exploited, including Great Britains colonial rule of Hong Kong until 1997. The era of exploitation in the 19th century is seared into the conscience of the Chinese, as is the invasion by the Japanese. This started with Christian Europeans coming not only as trademen, but as missionaries, without respect for the Chinese culture, for the Chinese way of living. Yes, there are Christians in China today, several million in fact out of a population of 1.3 billion. There is an equal amount of Muslims. They are experiencing an upsurge, but freedom of religion exists in China, and I have visited a church in the Sichuan province in China, run by a few Norwegians. But this Lief: "Prior to the coming of Christianity to China, I think God was very merciful to them in spite of the wickedness of many accepted customs and practices, because of their ignorance." This is very rude. I hope you don't mean this. Everything you've told me about God is guesswork. So when I respon to this elaborate exercise of guessing, I have no choice but to guess back. Wouldn't life be easier if the issue of God was just put aside? If until we really saw the guy sitting up there, we really shouldn't concern ourselves about it? Isn't that more healthy? Isn't it more healthy to concentrate on our worldly problems and employ worldy solutions, for the betterment of mankind (we keep doing it with our human rights charters, with our internationalization)? I don't believe in God because to me it is pure guesswork. Thus, it is not up to me to prove that there is a God or no God, because I find it completely irrelevant. Until I am presented with evidence that there is a God, there is as much possibility in my view that there is a holy Coca Cola bottle in our neighbouring galaxy, as there is the possibility of a God. It's irrelevant, because no one has ever shown me anything remotely holy. And I used to believe in God. Why? Because I did not know better (no pun intended). You present a very, very long explanation of the Enlightenment. I find it an impossible to answer that adequately as we speak, with an even longer answer. The analysis you present of the Enlightenment I believe to be very faulty and incomplete, and since I argue this I will have to back it up, very thoroughly, because there is so much to say about this! I could answer you now, but since I think your're so dead wrong on so many things I'd rather have the evidence ready. So forgive me for that. Maybe (I'm completely serious) I'll work on an answer over the summer, if not I may not answer your history part before in August But that's the beauty of Entmoot. But I have a very short answer for you until that time. Since you show a great disliking for the Enlightenment (which isn't even entirely consistent with the Vatican Church's position today), I would gladly ship you back to early 1300, when life was easier and the authority of the Church was near total. Au revoir!
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." Last edited by Coffeehouse : 06-11-2008 at 07:18 PM. |
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